Home Ownership : A saga maybe, but generally a successful one

Gibraltar has traditionally had one of the highest densities of population in the world.
Published in Build Gibraltar Magazine
Author: Nicholas Gomez
A view from the top of the Rock will immediately highlight to the discerning observer just how cramped Gibraltar was before the big land reclamation projects were completed in the early 1990’s.

Housing has therefore always been a major issue in this City.
Until the 1930’s housing was very much in the hands of the private sector and the first foray by the then Colonial Government, Harington Building in Cumberland Road actually had to be stopped because of the war and was only completed after peace was re-established.
An ambitious plan to build 18 blocks to house 1,034 families (more than 5,000 persons) in a large area of the Alameda Gardens was pared down to a mere 9 blocks when estimates of costs for these steel framed buildings were found to have been seriously misjudged. Anticipated costs in 1947 of £750,000 rocketed to £3,547,589 and the project was reduced to 472 flats which were then called the Governors Meadow Buildings (now Alameda Estate) and cost £1,799,000 and saved the Botanic Gardens for posterity.
1945 Artist Impression for the Alameda Estate Development

These flats were rented out to Gibraltarians eligible to be housed on the return of women and children from the evacuation. Subsequently cheaper builds were erected in Schomberg, Moorish Castle and Laguna Estates between 1965 and 1967 and the Glacis Estate completed in 1969 (for more details I recommend “Community and Identity: The making of Modern Gibraltar since 1704” by Professor Stephen Constantine Manchester University Press 2009).
After the frontier closure in 1969 the Varryl Begg estate was built and thereafter construction not just in housing but in most other areas came to a halt.
Shortly after the re-opening in 1982 the then Government of Gibraltar began to experiment with home ownership schemes the biggest of which was the Vineyards estate on the old gas works site which was originally proposed by a company promoted by a German born Gibraltarian Mr. Lothar Migge and the German Pistorius Group. The site went to tender however and was allocated to another local developer.
In 1989 the first GSLP government in conjunction with Dutch and Danish interests oversaw the reclamation of a large area within the Port, initially called “Feetham’s Beach” by incredulous political adversaries of the then Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr. Michael Feetham. The extraordinary success of what was originally characterised as a folly is there for all to see and around 2,000 flats were built including at what are now known as Harbour Views and Montagu Gardens / Crescent. These apartments were sold on an innovative basis with a subsidy of up to 50% from Government which could be repaid in the future.
Varryl Begg Estate 1980, at the time, surrounded by the sea



