Bermuda's housing crisis will be a thing of the past if the United Bermuda Party (UBP) forms the next government, its leaders promised yesterday.

At a press conference near the Midland Heights housing development in Hamilton Parish, Keetha Lowe was introduced as the party's Hamilton East candidate and a four-point plan addressing the affordable housing crisis was unveiled.

The party is promising to build 100 new homes for "affordable rental" in its first two years as Government and to make home ownership easier for the average working family by providing tax incentives for private construction of affordable housing in special development zones.

Increasing home ownership opportunities will help families build wealth and "eradicate the widening gap between the housing `haves' and the housing `have nots'," said Shadow Health and Family Services Minister Michael Dunkley.

Incentives for private construction will include reducing land tax and customs duties, he added.

"We will also liberalise building height restrictions for special housing initiatives."

The party would also work with lenders, housing experts, contractors and families to come up with a long term national housing strategy.

Ms Lowe, a 41-year-old mother of three, said that as a single mother she has direct experience of having to choose between the basic necessities of life, adding that the affordable housing crisis was tearing at the social fabric.

"You see the problem all over the Island," she said in a prepared statement. "The exorbitant cost of housing is placing a tremendous strain on ordinary Bermudian families and their children, the effect of which ripples throughout all areas of our society. Some are paying more than half of their household income for housing, while others are forced to live two or three families to a home just to make ends meet. To lower the sky-high cost of rental housing, we must expand the stock of decent, affordable homes for the thousands of Bermudians who rent."

She said no more than one quarter of income should be spent on rent or mortgage payments.

UBPLeader Grant Gibbons said the party had decided on building 100 homes to alleviate the plight of those on the emergency housing list.

Ms Lowe was a UBP candidate for the dual seat constituency Pembroke East in the 1993 general elections. She and her running mate Ramadhin Smith scored just 211 and 206 votes compared to the winners Health Minister Nelson Bascome and ruling party backbencher Ottiwell Simmons who garnered 938 and 865 votes respectively.

This time, Ms Lowe will be running in the area where she was born and raised under an entirely new electoral system.

Ms Lowe has a degree in communications from Towson State University in Maryland and is managing director of Atlantic Upholstery and Interiors, an interior decorating firm and upholsterer she founded in 1994.

"If being a busy mother and entrepreneur weren't enough, Keetha has served the community in other ways - as an officer of the Hamilton Lions Club and as a member of the Women's Health Advisory Council, the Mental Health Tribunal, the Road Safety Council and the Performing Arts Council," said Dr. Gibbons.

The UBP is also promising to "clean up" the scandal wracked Bermuda Housing Corporation, if sent back into power.

"The new United Bermuda Party is committed to bringing the best, most efficient housing finance system in the world to every neighbourhood in Bermuda," said party chairman Wayne Furbert. "That is our dream, and that is our plan."