Urban Expropriations: A fact of life in Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela

Since 2005, there have been 365 reported residential expropriations in Venezuela, according to the Human Rights Observatory. During that same time frame, the Venezuelan government expropriated 360 industrial installations. Between 2006 and 2007, the Chávez Administration authorized the expropriation of 241 apartments. In 2009, under the auspices of the so-called “Ley de Tierras Urbanas,” expropriating urban real estate became national policy. Just this past May, the government ordered the “forceful takeover” of 44 buildings in Caracas. Get it? In Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, expropriations are a fact of life.

The current housing crisis ranks among the top domestic issues in the minds of Venezuelans. Last April, the Chávez Administration announced the Great Housing Mission, an ambitious program which promises the construction of two million homes between 2011 and 2017. Experts believe this new brand of expropriations is Chávez’s way of creating an illusion of progress.

“The government made a promise that, according to experts, cannot be met. Because of that, [Chávez] employs symbolic measures to say I am here, I am taking care of the problem, and I am advancing against anything,” says Felipe Benitez, President of the Human Rights Observatory. Roberto Orta, President of the Association of Urban Real Estate Owners (APIUR), believes Chávez’s new tactics are nothing but a response to the approaching 2012 elections. “Chávez is thinking about the 2012 elections, he wants to send a message that the expropriations are part of the housing solution,” says Orta. Regardless of the government’s intentions, almost everyone agrees that expropriations are further harming an already precarious economic situation in Venezuela.