Twenty years since organising a four-day protest about the shortage of affordable housing, the Chairman of the Frog Lane Condominium Association said multi-storey homes is the way of the future and Government?s most recent prefabs were a waste of money.

In 1985, Terry Flood and other concerned tenants from across the Island took shifts in a 24-hour vigil on Church Street.

?We ate nothing but French fries all weekend,? Mr. Flood said. ?There was no codfish and potatoes on Sunday for us.?

Tenants from Dockyard, Longford Hill, Hermitage Road, Fenton?s Drive, St. Monica?s Road, Frog Lane, St. David?s, Barracks Hill and Hermitage Road took part because Government tried to sell them their homes at a high cost, he said.

?We organised and got together and formed the committee for concerned residents and we protested over the weekend in ?85 for four days until Government saw that it was a successful protest,? he said. ?They gave in and acknowledged we were voted in by the sitting tenants to represent them and negotiate for a more affordable price to meet the income of the sitting tenants.?

The protest was a success and more than 1,000 residents still lived in their own homes today because of it, he said.

Mr. Flood said there has always been an affordable housing crisis in Bermuda.

In the 1970s Mary Victoria Road, Cedar Park and Barrack?s Hill housing complexes were English-built and in the 1980s Danish workers arrived on the Island to build homes fast, he said.

?Most of the property these homes were built on were Crown lands so the land was already in the process of Government and did not have to be bought,? he said. ?I feel that back then housing was looked into and worked on. We have not seen much being done in the last seven years in the affordable housing needs.?

Mr. Flood supported Mary Victoria Road and Alexandra Road residents who were in a fight with the Bermuda Housing Corporation (BHC) to scrap plans to build another 20 units in their neighbourhood.

?Speaking from knowing the area, you can?t jam those people up like rats,? Mr. Flood said, adding that Devonshire was already too developed.

?Prospect cannot take any more jammed-up space,? he said. ?We have CedarBridge mega-school where thousands of people go up there every day. Frog Lane area and Prospect area is like Front Street in the morning and afternoon. We have Police Headquarters, the National Centre, Devonshire Rec., Frog Lane apartments, Mary Victoria Road housing, ZBM, Prospect Primary School, the incinerator, the bus garage, a pre-school a handicapped school, Cedar Park emergency housing and regular housing and it just cannot take any more.?

He said housing was a basic need to matter what political party you support.

And tenants needed to learn to respect their landlords, a call agreed upon by Deputy Opposition Leader Wayne Furbert, who this week called for a landlord/tenant Bill of Rights to be tabled in the House of Assembly to set out the minimum rights both parties could expect.

Mr. Flood said the Frog Lane Condominium Association had drafted a list of strict rules and regulations in order to keep their homes in good shape.

?The residents and/or tenants of housing must learn to respect landlords property be it private or Government. They need to get their priorities in order before buying their fancy car, or taking an unnecessary trip or buying fancy clothing ? pay your rent or your mortgage,? Mr. Flood said. ?You tell them no dogs allowed and in a couple of weeks you see three pit-bulls in the yard ? no loud music, in a couple of weeks you see music all over the place disturbing people?s rights to have rest.?

Mr. Flood said the solution to the housing crisis was right before our eyes.

?The prefabs around Curving Avenue, they are three- and four-storey buildings that can be built with very strict rules and regulations to deter the neighbourhood from turning into a slum,? he said.

He was disappointed the Bermuda Housing Task Force had been disbanded, which had been set up to monitor and assist residents.

?The folks that are heading the housing plan have very little experience in building and solving housing in Bermuda,? he said. ?Bringing in the mobile homes are a waste of taxpayers funds. We need to go up and put more than one unit on an area of property.?

He added BHC Chairman Lt. Col. David Burch could be an excellent Chairman with his military background, however, Col. Burch had to adhere to strict rules and at the same time reason and listen to the taxpayer who needed housing.