The Tribune

By ANNELIA NIXON

Tribune Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

The Bluff House Beach Resort and Marina has invested more than $250,000 into staff accommodation in a bid to resolve Abaco’s housing shortage and attract more skilled workers.

Molly McIntosh, the resort’s owner, said that - equipped with both a kitchen and laundry facility - the five-unit building also acts as a storage facility. The staff premises has been under construction for eight to nine months, and was recently completed, featuring four bedrooms and an extra room that may be turned into a bedroom as well in the future. 

“We just finished it. We just got done. I mean, things do take longer out here, but we’ve been building it for about nine months. It’s on the Bluff House property but it is not attached to another building. It’s a building on its own, and it has a kitchen facility for the staff,” Ms McIntosh said. “It has laundry that we use for both the staff and for the hotel, the laundry facility. And then it has four rooms upstairs.

“One of them will have two twin beds, and then the other three will be permanent rooms, just with a queen bed. One person in each room. Then the one room will have two people, like for transient people that need to stay overnight and go back home the next day. And then we have one more room that’s not done. We’ve got one more room in there that hopefully we’ll be able to finish up. That will be five when that one’s done. 

“Part of it underneath is also storage. So we’re using it for staff housing, the kitchen for the staff and the laundry room for the whole resort, and then a little bit of storage and hopefully another room somewhere in the near future.”

Ms McIntosh has been vocal about the need for more skilled workers on Abaco, and has expressed her belief that a lack of housing on the island has discouraged many from accepting job opportunities. While she has built staff quarters, she added that it cannot accommodate families. And with most housing on the island being short term-rentals, she is still faced with a housing problem for workers.

“I got one [room] filled,” Ms McIntosh said. “But I’m working on finding the right people for it. I need some different positions filled. So we’re looking. We’re actively looking. And we now do have a one bedroom place to put people, which is a big help. But remember, too, that’s not anybody with a family that’s going to come in.

“They’re going to want a house, and we can’t put children in staff quarters and wives and all that. So it still is an issue, even though I’ve built a building and a quarter-of-a-million dollars and we’ve got four rooms in it now, it’s still not totally fixing the problem.

“Most of the places that are built, they are looking for the short-term rentals where they make a lot more money. So I understand, and I can’t force anybody to do it, but I was just hoping that somehow, maybe the Government could make some type of programme to encourage landowners to build some longer-term housing places, maybe with some tax help,” Ms McIntosh added.

“I don’t know what it is, but I know that it’s difficult here. We did just build staff housing here, so we did get a few rooms to help us with bringing some people in from away. We can now get some people from Nassau or from Freeport, or even from Marsh Harbour, because we can have them live in staff quarters.”

Ms McIntosh suggested a programme hosted by the Government and motivated by incentives that would encourage the building of more long-term rentals on Abaco.

“One of the things that I was just thinking of... somehow the Government could have some kind of programme initiated where, if someone gets the Crown Land and builds some long-term housing on it, like townhouses or something where some live with their wife and a kid, or something like that, that they would give them some tax concessions,” Ms McIntosh said.

“Maybe they wouldn’t have to pay duty on bringing in the materials to build it, or some kind of concession to help people. Encourage people to want to do that, because the short-term rentals are so much more profitable than the long-term. And so it dissuades people from wanting to build for that. 

“I mean, it’s not just me. All the places in Abaco, we’re all looking to get some more help, because as the business builds we need more and more qualified staff. And tourists coming in now are looking for a little more sophistication than maybe they used to. But Abaco is wonderful. We don’t want all of our talented and smart, wonderful young people to have to move away to get a good job.”