Carolyn Cooper | PM must condemn uptown building violations

Last Tuesday, The Gleaner published a news story on the visit of Prime Minister Andrew Holness to communities severely affected by recent flooding. He made a rather provocative statement: “Coming from the tour, by air especially, it is clear that some Jamaicans have chosen to live in areas that are dangerous, because those areas are susceptible to weather events. People have chosen to live on hillsides that are precarious. People have chosen to live very close to riverbanks, and some even build in river courses. We have quite a number of communities that are perched precariously on gully banks.”

The prime minister’s repetition of “chosen” is a very forceful rebuke. But many poor Jamaicans do not live in dangerous places by choice. They simply cannot do better. They cannot afford to purchase prime property. So, they settle for undesirable locations where they can build inexpensive houses. Andrew Holness’ choice of “chosen” exposes his gross failure to understand the history of landlessness in this country.

The Jamaica National Heritage Trust website confirms that, “With full freedom from slavery and apprenticeship in 1838, there was the desire among some blacks for personal liberty and land of their own. This desire was heightened by the harsh treatment meted out to the ex-slaves by the planters. In many cases, the planters paid the slaves low wages and charged them high rental fees, which sometimes led to eviction from plantation dwellings. It was soon realised that freedom would have little meaning as long as planters controlled both the housing and labour of the ex-slaves. Free villages emerged as a solution to this problem.” I suspect that it wasn’t just “some blacks” who wanted liberty and land. All did.

Wikipedia defines “free villages” as “Caribbean settlements, particularly in Jamaica, founded in the 1830s and 1840s with land for freedmen with independence of the control of plantation owners and other major estates. The concept was initiated by English Baptist missionaries in Jamaica, who raised funds in Great Britain to buy land to be granted to freedmen after emancipation. The planters had vowed not to sell any land to freedmen after slavery was finally abolished in the Empire in 1838; they wanted to retain freedmen as agricultural workers. The Free Villages were often founded around a Baptist church, and missionaries worked to found schools as well in these settlements”.

UPTOWN GULLY BANKS

After chastising vulnerable citizens, the prime minister appealed to a wider audience than the residents of the at-risk communities he was touring: “‘I will use this opportunity to urge Jamaicans … in seeking to settle and seeking to find a place to live, take into consideration the environmental issues and the climate-change issues, particularly ... having to do with your access to water (and) with the stability of the slope.

“‘If you have to clear the land, how would that affect the stability of the slope? And then, pay attention to the climate-change issues if you are going to have frequent weather events,” the prime minister implored.

Andrew Holness is absolutely right. Environmental issues must be taken into account before building construction starts. But precarious development does not take place only on gully banks. Many upscale buildings are also perched on unstable ground. Both literally and symbolically! In some instances, previously stable land is disturbed by so-called developers who fail to do environmental impact assessments before digging down their building site.

Furthermore, construction sometimes starts before the required permit for the project is granted by the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC). This is precisely what happened on Tavistock Terrace in Jack’s Hill earlier this year. A Gleaner report was published in June, headlined, ‘St Lucia-registered company didn’t get approval for Tavistock project’. Alarmingly, the attempt of the developer to build an access road to the top of the site caused the hillside to collapse. Just as often happens in far less wealthy communities! The KSAMC was forced to issue a ‘cease and desist order’ to the developers. The very opposite of the permit that was needed to proceed with construction!

Disastrous flooding this month again impacted Jack’s Hill. On the very same Tuesday that The Gleaner reported the prime minister’s chastising of Jamaicans who build on dangerous sites, the newspaper published a damning report, ‘Hillside Horror’. There was a mudslide from the same development that the KSAMC had shut down, which caused catastrophic damage to an adjacent property.

OVERTURNING RESTRICTIVE COVENANTS

I wondered if the prime minister had passed judgement on the uptown developers who appear to have failed to consider the environmental consequences of clearing the hillside. I googled ‘Andrew Holness Tavistock landslide’. The top two results didn’t even mention the prime minister. The third result was an irrelevant 2020 CARICOM report, ‘Prime Minister Holness gets general elections landslide’. Not a word on Tavistock!

If the prime minister is serious about environmental issues, he must ensure that the KSAMC and the National Environment and Planning Agency are given the resources to do their job properly. One of the vexing issues in Jack’s Hill and many other communities is the construction of several buildings on lots that are supposed to house a single family. Restrictive covenants are overturned illegally. Understaffing appears to be diminishing the capacity of the KSAMC to monitor housing developments.

A 13-floor apartment building is under construction on Wellington Drive in Kingston 6. How could this development have been approved by the KSAMC? Andrew Holness must censure uptown developers who choose to violate regulations. And he must denounce them as forcefully as he reprimands poor people for building dangerously. Unlike many Jamaicans, powerful developers really do have a choice. To play it safe, or not!

Carolyn Cooper, PhD, is a teacher of English language and literature and a specialist on culture and development. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and karokupa@gmail.com.