UDC's J$1,200 mortgage plan - Developer begins clean-up of downtown housing rot
Published:Sunday | June 26, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Avia Collinder, Business Writer
The first lot of land is being acquired through forced takeover, paving the way for the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) to test a new programme that will raze blighted housing infrastrucure in mid-city Kingston and replace it with new homes for persons of low income.
The UDC has tapped cheap funds from the National Housing Trust (NHT) at one per cent to finance the pilot project that spans 40 households.
The state developer will build the new structures using a standard design to further contain costs.
Units will be sold under mortgage to the persons now resident at the properties that fall within the zone of improvement.
The UDC has already set the mortgage at J$1,200 per week, or J$4,800 per month - repayable over 30 years - saying the figure was derived based on what the income-challenged households said in consultations on the plan that they could afford.
The UDC has dubbed the programme 'The Downtown Kingston Redevelopment Plan: Yard Transformation'.
Earlier this month, Cabinet signed off on a J$620,000 acquisition of property at Chestnut Lane by the UDC, where the first of the homes will be built.
The plan calls for the construction of 40 units on four sites in central and west Kingston at a cost of J$50 million, financed by the NHT's one per cent funds.
Other terms of the loan were not disclosed.
UDC general manager, Joy Douglas, told Sunday Business that the initiative does not involve any long-term subsidy to the occupants, whose rotting and delapidated homes are being replaced.
By building a project around them, she said, the idea is to achieve resident buy-in into the larger downtown transformation programme.
"Part of the philosophy of urban redevelopment has to be that all stakeholders feel that something is in it for them, that they are being considered. It is part of a multi-pronged approach to housing downtown," said Douglas.
Critical to the redevelopment
Additionally, Douglas said that housing was critical to the redevelopment process.
"The notion that commerce alone will resuscitate the city is a fallacy. There needs to be life in the city - both day and night," she said.
"For a really vibrant downtown, people must live there."
Jamaicans resident abroad who are used to a cosmopolitan existence have already expressed interest in occupying homes in the municipality, said the urban developer.
But the pilot acknowledges that the current residents of downtown ought not to be displaced.
Though it has engaged in residential real-estate projects in the past, housing is not part of the UDC's core function. That job falls to agencies like the NHT and the Housing Agency of Jamaica (HAJ), both of which cater to the lower tiers of the market.
Douglas said her agency has taken on the project because beneficiaries are for the most part not NHT contributors, nor can they afford the minimum standard of housing that the HAJ and the NHT produce.
"NHT is helping to finance the pilot as it hopes that we will develop an approach which is more sustainable than the 'Inner City Housing Programme' model," said Douglas.
The current residential population in downtown Kingston is just over 30,000, with Douglas noting that public servants and business owners are increasingly intrigued at the prospect of moving into a downtown neighbourhood.
The pilot will begin with 18 Chestnut Lane, which will be acquired via compulsory acquisition laws for J$620,000.
Douglas says construction will begin after the acquisition process, which is being overseen by the National Land Agency (NLA). The funds will go into an escrow account until relatives of the owner, who is deceased, are located.
Other acquisitions are being pursued in three other locations on High Holborn Street, Hanover Street, and Charles Streets - a process which also involves finding the owners.
Chestnut Lane comprises four households of 23 individuals.
Challenging
Project architect, Patrick Stanigar, the consulting architect at the UDC, said that the attempt to improve living conditions for residents would be "challenging", but would be approached by constructing rooms one at a time, moving residents into them, then demolishing the old room before constructing another.
Completed units will be 110 square feet, but built to accommodate expansion to a second floor to create a 400-500 sq-ft home.
Units will comprise one bedroom with a bathroom for households that average 3.67 residents each.
"We will guide expansion," said Stanigar.
With supporting infrastructure already in place, inclusive of roads, water, electricity and even cable television, construction of each unit is expected to last one month.
"These are not green field sites," said the project architect.
Residents, he noted would be trained through HEART Trust/NTA, the national training agency, to participate in the construction process, thereby also acquiring employable skills.
Douglas says the new housing at Chestnut was customised with the input of the residents, who nixed the idea of apartments as unaffordable.
Instead, they will have units separated by fencing, as depicted in the 'Yard Transformation' brochure produced by the UDC in August 2010.
Many of the programme's beneficiaries, she noted, were also outside the formal economy and were not yet NHT contributors. Efforts will be made to encourage them to contribute as one means of getting funds for expansion, Douglas said.
The Office of the Prime Minister, in its disclosure of the pending land acquisition at Chestnut Lane, said the housing pilot aims to improve the quality of life for residents at the address by replacing or adding to the housing which already exists.
It is expected that when completed, the project will serve as a model that will attract other investors to develop housing solutions in downtown Kingston.
Conscious effort
The UDC said it made a conscious effort to ensure that its commercial programme did not displace long-time downtown dwellers, notwithstanding their circumstances.
"While we found that there was interest in larger developments such as office buildings and hotels, very few developers were interested in the challenge of low-cost housing," said the urban planner.
"Thus, ironically, for many years the housing project was the main secondary development which we undertook ourselves while we developed the infrastructure for and packaged the more glamorous projects. We are very proud of that pioneering history which provided affordable housing in its time to Hellshire, Ocho Rios at Mansfield and Brook Green, Catherine Hall in Montego Bay, and Orange Bay in Hanover."
Douglas does not pretend that execution of the plan will be easy.
"The current search for solutions to the problems of our inner cities is, however, the greatest challenge so far," she said.