Patricia Green | The deafening construction boom

Over the Easter weekend, I attended church in Montego Bay, and to my surprise, I was greeted by a new landscape of multistorey development clusters around the lagoon and its route into the parish of Hanover. The solemn three-hour Good Friday mass was being drowned out by the continuous noise of construction activities.

Neighbourhood chat groups were buzzing with comments of construction work being undertaken on the public holiday, adding to others of being awakened regularly by the early morning clamour of construction.

Social-development specialist Carol Narcisse, in addressing a recent workshop, said that advocacy is the key to empowering communities and influencing change and called on grass-roots organisations and citizens to utilise and embrace this as a strategic, organised effort. What laws have enabled these developments taking place so rapidly? What should citizens do to abate construction disturbances? What prevails towards preventing construction work on holidays, especially if they are holy days?

The most famous Roman god, Janus, represented by a double-faced head, was the first of any gods and depicted the animistic spirit of doorways and archways. Animism relates to the belief that natural objects have souls that can exist apart from their material bodies. Some scholars regarded Janus as the god of all beginnings – of the day, month, and year, both calendrical and agricultural. Roman religion was based on mutual trust between their god and man to secure the cooperation to be able to live successfully.

In Rome, Janus was located at the north side of the Forum, with double doors at each end of its shrine, and traditionally, these doors were left open in time of war and were kept closed when Rome was at peace. How a propos might be the spirit of Janus to the environment of construction development and its key responsible public entities, the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) and the municipal corporations, including the St James Municipal Corporation (StJMC) and the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC)!

ESTABLISH GUIDELINES

The NEPA maps rural and urban development and growth to establish planning guidelines, regulations, and projections. The 1958 Town and Country Planning Act (TCPA) empowers the NEPA to undertake land-use and density mapping, etc, of neighbourhoods. These become provisional then Confirmation Development Orders undertaken through consultations with the municipal corporations and should include citizen participation. This mandate is absent from the regulations that govern the municipal corporations. Questions are raised constantly over what appears to be anomalies. Why is there a double-faced head currently operating over the urban planning in neighbourhoods? Why do the municipal corporations deliberate over planning approval matters when these are submitted to them to be forwarded to the NEPA? Why are the municipalities issuing any neighbourhood development planning approvals independent of the NEPA?

The NEPA Town and Country Planning (Kingston and Saint Andrew and the Pedro Cays) Provisional Development Order, 2017 contains 19 Local Planning Areas (LPAs) with detailed guidelines for development in these areas. Yet some neighbourhoods such as Havendale and Meadowbrook remained outside of any LPA without any legal prescription for density changes. These neighbourhoods had densities set at 75 habitable rooms per hectare (HRH)/30 habitable rooms per acre (HRA). Why were Havendale and Meadowbrook given building approvals for increased densities? Why does the 2023 Confirmation of this Development Order show Havendale and Meadowbrook remaining outside the LPA yet with increased densities of 250 HRH/50 HRA and 125 HRH/100 HRA to allow multifamily developments? Why were the citizens omitted from the 2023 sectoral discussions that confirmed and mandated these increased densities?

In Montego Bay, under construction monitoring by the StJMC, the NEPA Town and Country Planning (St James Parish) Provisional Development Order 1978 received confirmation in 1982, becoming the planning tool. By 2018, the NEPA produced another Provisional Development Order, enabling higher densities in residential neighbourhoods. Existing 75 HRH/30 HRA changed immediately to 250 HRH/100 HRA for neighbourhoods extending into and covering all of Unity Hall at its extreme western boundary, plus an even higher density of 375 HRH/150 HRA around the lagoon. Were citizens informed about these neighbourhood increased densities? Were community consultations held? Were sewerage and other infrastructure upgrades made to accommodate these increased demands?

JANUS IN THE ROOM

The Janus in the room, I would argue, abides in the colonial 1958 TCPA. Sections 11 and 12 mention ‘local authority’. However, when this act was promulgated, it covered all British Overseas Territories, and each had a designated local planner as the authority. In Jamaica, Graham Charles (Bill) Hodges served from 1952 to1967 and implemented this act. He succeeded David Spruell, who may have attended the 19th International Congress of Housing and Town Planning held in 1948 in Zurich, Switzerland, with other experts from West Indian colonies involved in national and regional planning of the town and ‘country-side’. Jamaica may also have been represented at that congress by someone from the erstwhile Central Housing Authority, which erected the Trench Town housing development where Bob and Rita Marley lived. This colonial TCPA remains in effect today.

Currently, with the establishment of the parish councils/municipal corporations as post-Independence local authorities, they are now erroneously being ascribed under the 1958 TCPA as the ‘local authority’. This now seems to simulate the shrine of Janus, with doors left open, creating tension, analogous with the time of war in Rome. Municipal corporations use this TCPA to issue development-planning approvals although they lack authority to undertake physical-planning designations. The result is that such apparently arbitrary density approvals by these ‘local authorities’ are creating much haphazard transformation of neighbourhoods across Jamaica. The other face of this spirit of doorways and archways pervades as the regulations stipulate that all development and construction proposals must be submitted through the municipal corporations, holding responsibility to filter these to the various central agencies for comments and/or approvals. Those entities are to return all findings and feedback to the respective municipal corporations.

In the construction development arena, the primary role of the municipal corporation in the building construction environment. I would argue, that their primarily should be issuing building approvals, monitoring all construction activities including stop orders, issuing certificates of occupancy as succinctly set out in the 2016 Local Government Act and the 2018 Building Act that govern these operations. Building approvals from municipal corporations contain various operational clauses such as noise and work hours. Noise shall not exceed 70dB at the external property boundaries. Construction work time is usually confined between 7:30 a.m. and 6 p.m., Mondays to Saturdays, and none is permitted on Sundays and public holidays. Citizens are anxious for development and urban improvement. However, the constant refrain is that it must be undertaken legally and orderly. I call for removal of this current two-faced planning system to redress and restore order in neighbourhoods.

Patricia Green, PhD, a registered architect and conservationist, is an independent scholar and advocate for the built and natural environment. Send feedback to patgreen2008@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com.