Twelve years of numbers: the INVI historical series reveals how much was built, when, and what remained to be done at the beginning of the Jorge Blanco period
SANTO DOMINGO. – The INVI 1981 Annual Report not only documents what the State built that year, but also includes a historical series of annual production since 1970 that allows, for the first time in this series, reading the complete curve of Dominican housing policy from the beginning of Balaguer's twelve years to the end of Guzmán's government.
And at the same time, it records the design projects that would set the agenda for the next government: that of Salvador Jorge Blanco.
The report includes a chart showing INVI's annual housing production from 1970 to 1981 and is the only official document in this series that provides this data year by year, along with the corresponding investment. The table is as follows:
| Year | Homes delivered | Investment (RD$) |
| 1970 | 9,270 | 52,718,708 |
| 1971 | 200 | 400,000 |
| 1972 | 358 | 1,430,048 |
| 1973 | 103 | 650,827 |
| 1974 | 207 | 1,569,897 |
| 1975 | 701 | 4,640,187 |
| 1976 | 253 | 2,460,881 |
| 1977 | 378 | 3,471,887 |
| 1978 | 36 | 2,340,056 |
| 1979 | 421 | 1,150,798 |
| 1980 | 3,433 | 30,010,049 |
| 1981 | 3,224 | 14,821,041 |
| TOTAL 1970–1981 | 18,584 | 105,663,339 |
The most relevant figure is from 1970: 9,270 homes delivered with an investment of 52.7 million pesos. This was the peak of production for the entire period, and it contrasts sharply with subsequent years.
From 1971 onward, deliveries fell sharply and never approached that level again in any of the remaining years of Balaguer's twelve-year term. In 1973, INVI delivered a mere 103 units. In 1978, the last year of his administration, that number dropped to 36.
The contrast between the narrative of the “Statesman of Construction” and the figures from INVI itself is one of the most significant findings of this document.
The arrival of Guzmán's government did not produce an immediate rebound. In 1979, the year of Hurricane David, INVI delivered 421 units, a modest figure but one that, in the context of the catastrophe, represented a real effort.
In 1980, with the reconstruction program in full swing, production rose to 3,433 units, the second highest figure of the entire period. In 1981, 3,224 units were delivered. Overall, the two highest production years of the 1970-1981 period occurred under Guzmán's administration.
The document does not explain the 1970 peak. A plausible hypothesis is that it consolidates deliveries from several projects accumulated since the mid-1960s. To verify this, the INVI activity reports from 1968, 1969, and 1970 would be necessary, but these are not available, at least not digitally, at the National General Archive (AGN).
What was coming: Sabana Perdida and Haina
The most forward-looking section of the report documents the projects in the design phase that INVI had ready to begin construction in 1982. The most important is the Serviced Lots program, with two complementary projects: Sabana Perdida and Haina, which together comprise 7,883 housing units with a budget of 42 million pesos, financed in part by a 25 million peso loan from the World Bank. The loan agreement was to be formalized in the first quarter of 1982, and construction was scheduled to begin in July of that year.
Sabana Perdida, in the Majagual sector northwest of Santo Domingo, is the largest: 4,656 lots of approximately 100 m² in 82 usable hectares, conceived in four stages of one year each.
The first phase would include a shopping center, a community center, and a sports park. The estimated population for the entire project was 25,780 residents, families with incomes between RD$100 and RD$300 per month, the most vulnerable segment of the formal housing market. The accumulated investment up to September 1981 for preparation, land purchases, and payments for improvements was RD$546,360.
Haina, opposite the town of Nigua in the province of San Cristóbal, includes 3,227 lots in 55 hectares with 62.7% of the area designated for housing, in three stages with a complete Community Center, Sports Center and neighborhood centers.
Both projects adopt a predominantly pedestrian urban planning model with mini-parks as access areas to the homes: pedestrian paths that also function as common gardens, seeking to compensate for the reduction of individual space with a greater amount of public space.
The homes in both projects are planned in two models that would be developed in progressive stages: semi-detached houses with a side alley, with areas from 7.16 to 40.7 m², sharing a wall and common water and drainage connections.
The side alley, as explained in the fact sheet, is a traditional feature of popular housing that promotes interior ventilation and provides access to the rear of the house.
13,889 homes in the design phase: the agenda for the next government
At the end of 1981, INVI had 31 projects in the design phase, comprising 13,889 homes, with an estimated budget of 52 million pesos for their construction. In addition to Sabana Perdida, Haina, and Los Alcarrizos III, the inventory included projects in Baní, San Cristóbal, and San Francisco de Macorís.
This inventory is the immediate legacy that Guzmán's government left to the next. Salvador Jorge Blanco took office in August 1982 with a portfolio of designed projects, purchased land, and negotiated loans.
What he did with that inheritance, which projects he ended, which he halted, which he expanded, is the story of the next chapter in this series.
The data that the memory does not provide
The 1981 INVI Annual Report documents what the State did. It does not quantify what it was unable to do, and its pages do not include the total number of families without adequate housing at that time, nor the gap between actual demand and institutional supply. For this assessment, subsequent studies by Ulloa Cáceres and González Mueses provide the context: the demand generated by the accelerated internal migration since the 1960s was never met by the pace of public construction.
The 18,584 homes delivered by INVI between 1970 and 1981, with all that they represent, were insufficient in the face of a population that was growing and moving at a rate that no housing program of the period managed to keep up with.
Primary source: National Housing Institute (INVI), INVI Annual Report 1981, Invivienda magazine no. 3, Santo Domingo, 1981. Director General: Eng. Frida Aybar de Sanabia. Repository: General Archive of the Nation, call number 10110-1. Supplementary sources: Natalia Ulloa Cáceres, Social Housing in Santo Domingo (doctoral dissertation, 2017). Evelyn González Mueses, On Dominican Social Housing in the 20th Century (master's thesis, MAAPUD 5).
Series: History of social housing in the Dominican Republic. (Chapter XV)
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