A Special Development Order appears to be on the cards for a housing development in St David’s.

Construction on the public/private partnership to build 54 units on Westcott Road, Southside, near the Harbour View Village is expected to begin in late 2007.

When speaking of the development in a radio address on Tuesday evening, Housing Minister Sen. David Burch said: “In addition, to accelerate construction the project is the subject to a Special Development Order and final plans are expected in July 2007 with construction set to begin in the third-quarter.”

The three-acre plot of land was sold by Government, through the Bermuda Land Development Company, to the private contractor Trinity Construction in November last year. Ground was broken on the site in May 30.

Sen. Burch said on Wednesday: “Trinity’s anticipated development will consist of 18 three-bedroom and 36 two-bedroom units. The selling price for the two-bedroom units is $450,000 and $525,000 for the three-bedroom ones. As I said before the homes will be available to first time Bermudian purchasers only.

“It is also proposed to apply for duty free exemption under the Customs Tariff Act for materials used in the construction of affordable housing.

“The decision to sell rather than develop this parcel of land ourselves was based on several considerations not the least of which were:

(1) assisting with the financing of affordable housing projects at Southside, specifically Harbour View Village development;

(2) facilitate the faster delivery of housing to Bermudians;

(3) increasing the affordable home ownership to Bermudians and (4) making additional rental units available by restricting the sale to Bermudians which should help to relieve the rental market.”

The Ministry of Housing and the Ministry of Environment did not respond to a request for more information on the SDO by press time and officials at the Planning Department said they were not aware of a SDO being granted for that development — but said that paper work may not yet have been submitted.