No more room in Portmore - Municipality nears residential housing capacity

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

The residential housing explosion in the municipality of Portmore, St Catherine, seems to be close to being over.

Joy Douglas, senior planner for Highway 2000 and also general manager of the Urban Development Corporation (UDC), told The Sunday Gleaner that "Portmore has pretty much reached its capacity, in terms of the municipality. Apart from some filling in from West Indies Home Contractors (WIHCON), it is pretty much done".

Recently, Country Club 2 was advertised, the location given as "adjoining Country Club 1, beside traffic lights on 1-95". There are 30 units in the development, with inner units selling for $10.5 million and end units for $11 million. A smaller gated community has also been established adjacent to Monza, which is close to Country Club 2".

The Portmore to Clarendon Park Highway 2000 Corridor Development Plan 2004 - 2005, Settlement and Housing, states: "According to the 2001 population census, St Catherine grew by 100,336 persons for 1991 - 2001." The 26.3 per cent increase was "about three times the growth observed for Jamaica as a whole".

In bold type, underscoring the importance of the recommendation, the plan stated: "It is further recommended that no new housing development be allowed within the urban fence of the Portmore municipality, with the exception of the Hellshire area, designated for further development by the UDC."

Housing needs

In addition, a housing-need analysis for St Catherine and Clarendon showed that 52,628 houses were needed for 2005-2010, that requirement including units required for replacement of existing structures, totally new developments, and the upgrading of squatter dwellings. For 2010-2025, the requirement is 61,863 houses.

Among the more prominent recent housing developments in Portmore has been the gated community of Caribbean Estates. Douglas pointed out that there had been a plan for additional phases, or an expansion of the development; however, an area nearby in the Bernard Lodge area has been declared an aquifer zone, effectively preventing this development.

Douglas pointed out that "housing prices are lower in St Catherine, so young professionals and other persons try to buy into St Catherine to get a start". And the development plan states: "The Portmore municipality is the second-largest urban area in Jamaica. The inhabitants of the municipality are strategically placed to access employment opportunities in Kingston, Spanish Town, and Old Harbour."

The plan ranks urban centres, with Spanish Town and May Pen identified as regional centres, Old Harbour, Lionel Town and Hellshire among the regional subcentres, and Osbourne Store, Hayes, and Kemps Hill listed as district centres. Underscoring the importance of Portmore, Douglas said: "Portmore, which does not have the infrastructure, is tending towards a regional centre more than a regional subcentre," as its gaining on the parish capital, Spanish Town.

• ... But more along the highway

An impressive pantheon of housing developments - most of them gated - has kept pace with Highway 2000. In the relatively early going, there were Magil Palms and Vineyards, as well as Inswood. Over time, an impressive array of names has been added, some along the highway, and others closer to the Old Harbour Road - the Aviary, Seville Meadows, Whitewater Meadows, New Harbour Village, and New Harbour Village II, Presidential Estate.

Urban Development Corporation (UDC) general manager and senior planner for Highway 2000, Joy Douglas, puts the housing boom along the highway corridor in the general context of urbanisation. "Urbanisation is a global phenomenon," Douglas said. "Man has found he is more efficient and productive when he comes together in this form of settlement called a city."

She also points out that activity is shifted outside of farming as more and more land goes into non-agricultural use. "It is also a result of the need for man to diversify his economic base to support the society," she said, pointing to the heavy mining activity in Manchester as an example.

So with population expanding and more people looking to the Jamaican capital for economic opportunities, Douglas asks rhetorically: "Where are they to go?"

Caymanas development

The swathe of relatively open land along Mandela Highway has been slated for development, but Douglas points out that it will be structured to retain the required mixture of land use. In its Proposed Land Use Summary, the Caymanas Estate Development Plan (CEDP) of October 2008 states:

"In the process of developing the CEDP, the UDC sought to ensure that the plan adhered to the planning guidelines enunciated in the Portmore to Clarendon Park Highway 2000 Corridor Development Plan, Volume 13, Zoning."

Hence, the primary uses to be encouraged in the Caymanas Estate development are single-family dwellings (except for mixed-use recreational/residential/commercial planned unit developments on very large lots), agriculture, and forestry.

The Caymanas Estate is 10,703 acres, going south of Mandela Highway and 1,800 metres north of the Sligoville main road, high in the hills of St Catherine.

- M.C.