Hurricane-resistant Home Improvement in the OECS

Making low-income housing in the OECS safer and environmentally sustainable
through property insurance and home retrofit programs.

Terms of Reference for the Review and Upgrade of the Building Quality Control Mechanism

I. The Independent Contractor (hereinafter referred to as "The Consultant") will be technically responsible to the Director of the Unit for Sustainable Development and Environment ("USDE") of the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States ("GS/OAS"), for fulfilling the obligations established by the following terms of reference of this contract.

II. Under the USAID/OAS Caribbean Disaster Mitigation Project, the OAS assisted the National Research and Development Foundation of St. Lucia (NRDF) in launching a Hurricane Resistant Home Improvement Program (HRHIP). This program has been operational for nearly 7 years. Recently, the OAS has been able to generate an interest on the part of the World Bank World in this program, and in exploring the potential for its replication in other territories of the Eastern Caribbean. In response, a short-term project was prepared by the OAS and approved by the World Bank.

The proposed project aims to review the lessons learned from the St. Lucia HRHIP program and to build capacity in the OECS to improve on and replicate the linkage of property insurance with home retrofit programs for low-income homeowners. It will also introduce an environmental management dimension to the existing program. There will be four main activities under this project: 1) strengthening of the safer housing and insurance program for low-income homeowners in St. Lucia; 2) development of siting criteria designed to minimize the impact of the housing on the environment and to minimize the effects of prevalent hazards on the housing; 3) development of a blueprint for successful safer and environmentally sustainable housing retrofit and insurance programs for use in the region, based on the St. Lucia program and on an assessment of existing safer housing programs and insurance schemes for low-income housing in the region; and 4) a sub-regional workshop to present the draft blueprint and to identify opportunities for replication of this program within the region.

The purpose of this consultancy is to review and update the minimum standards for low-income housing improvement and retrofit and to review and upgrade the building quality control functions of the NRDF HRHIP.

III. The consultant will carry out the following tasks:

1. Review the latest information on guidelines for housing construction and retrofitting, including guidelines associated with the latest national building code. Particular attention should be paid in this review to the special limitations and constraints of low-income housing.
2. Describe and document typical good and bad construction and maintenance practices, through visits to selected typical homes. Documentation should include photos of identified good and bad practices.
3. Formulate minimum construction standards consistent with the latest information and the current building code, and produce graphics and text to be incorporated in a booklet. This should include a detailed users guide on the use of different types of hurricane straps. The new minimum standards also should take into account the growing trend in using concrete and blocks as substitutes for wood.
4. Review internal NRDF procedures and interview NRDF staff and the estimators to document how the quality control of HRHIP work is exercised.
5. Formulate updated procedures for the roles of the estimators, inspectors and NRDF in controlling construction quality.
6. Identify training needs for estimator(s) and NRDF staff in application of new minimum standards and quality control procedures.
7. Make recommendations and develop an outline for the necessary immediate and ongoing training for NRDF staff and estimator(s).
8. Identify the minimum qualifications for artisans who can be contracted to execute the HRHIP work. Prepare an outline for a training program for artisans.

IV. The consultant shall submit the following documents to GS/OAS' satisfaction. All final materials are to be submitted in hardcopy and electronic format to the OAS office in St. Lucia and in electronic format to the OAS Unit for Sustainable Development and Environment:

1. A brief report outlining recommendations of changes to be made to the existing HRHIP training materials. These recommendations are to be developed from the review of the latest information on housing construction and retrofit (as described in III.a above), the review of good and bad building practices (III.b. above) and personal experience by the consultant in the use of the existing materials. The report is to contain summaries of these two reviews.
2. A full draft of the updated minimum construction standards, as described in III.c, for review by GS/OAS and NRDF. This draft is to address the recommendations put forth in IV.a. above.
3. A final version of the updated minimum construction standards, which addresses the comments on the draft provided by GS/OAS and NRDF.
4. A final report, which provides an overview of all work undertaken. This report is to include the results of the review of quality control procedures currently in place at NRDF (III.d.), recommended changes to the NRDF procedures for estimators and inspectors (III.e.), training needs for inspectors and NRDF staff (III.f.) and minimum qualifications for artisans who can be contracted to execute the HRHIP work, with an outline for a training program for artisans (III.h).

Last Updated 13 March 2003