Patricia Green | Build a Kingston without physical and social barriers

On Instagram, Carrington Morgan, founding director of City Life Ministries headquartered in Central Kingston, declared on its 20th anniversary that 2024 is “… the year of the builder…”. Morgan elaborated that our aim should exceed mere experiences but produce “… something we can show … an approach based on the word ‘interdependence’ (not independent) …”. Being assertive should be the mindset for building, emphasised Morgan, especially if you want to build something that is bigger than you. As we review 2023 activities in the capital of Jamaica, the question, therefore, resonates, are these activities capable of achieving Morgan’s criteria in 2024?

In 2023, the city of Kingston saw construction bids issued for the proposed Houses of Parliament at National Heroes Park, the northern boundary of this city. By May 4, the Jamaica Information Service reported that this building is to be declared a ‘national strategic project,’ a component of the master plan to redevelop downtown Kingston. The ‘Downtown Kingston Redevelopment Plan’ falls under the auspices of the Planning Institute of Jamaica, the Urban Development Corporation, the Kingston &and St Andrew Municipal Corporation, and the Jamaica Social Investment Fund. However, David Abrikian, in a letter to The Gleaner on May 6, 2023, wrote that Parliament should not be housed at National Heroes Circle because this would rob the city of needed green space, including “… social oxygen ...”. A public petition has been started to halt any construction in the park.

Extending into 2023 were finalisation of climate adaptation for a shoreline protection wall and beach from Rae Town to the Bank of Jamaica, also a boardwalk along the Kingston Harbour waterfront. Another finalisation, ‘Downtown Kingston Redevelopment [Market and Commercial District] Implementation Plan,’ undertaken through a European consultancy, included some residential neighbourhoods. This resulted in many questions over possible loss of historic market and commercial architectural heritage, including the intangible heritage of neighbourhood street life unique to ancestral market traditions. In February 2023, a project call came for an international landscape architecture consultancy ‘Urban Design Concept for the Creation of a Public Space along Ocean Boulevard and the Kingston Waterfront,’ then in July, there was another international request for ‘Consulting Services for Feasibility Studies and Detailed Designs for Kingston Harbour Walk’.

RESTORATION

Also in July 2023, the Commonwealth Heritage Forum was actively promoting restoration of the railway station at Pechon Street. In October 2023, as I toured Water Lane with ‘Kingston Creative’, I was overjoyed to see behind the artwork restoration of one of the building shells, promising hope for the city of Kingston. On December 20, 2023, The Gleaner reported ‘Holness takes credit for environment allowing new $2.1b Kingston 2 development’. It was at a groundbreaking ceremony for a 10-storey building on three lots inside the low-rise detached residential community of Bournemouth Gardens.

This became possible through the National Environment and Planning Agency April 5, 2023 ,Confirmation of the Development Order for Kingston & St Andrew and the Pedro Cays that converted the entire city of Kingston into a plot ratio density of 1:10 for high-rise developments. By December 30, 2023, The Observer elaborated ‘No intention to displace residents: Gov’t says it’s acquiring central Kingston properties to rehouse families’, clarifying plans to purchase seven lots where families became fire victims in 2022. Is it the intention of Government to acquire these properties likewise for high-rise developments inside this low-rise neighbourhood?

Eleanor Sharpe, director of the department of planning and development in the city of Philadelphia, in the 2023 Maurice Facey Lecture on October 31, 2023, emphasised the need for a city vision using the example of Philadelphia, which made me recall that as a historic preservation student in the mid-1980s at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, I was involved through lecture series and assignments in helping to build that Philadelphia vision. Sharpe reiterated the need “… to engage and educate citizens and residents … to empower the building of their neighbourhood …”.

RUDE AWAKENING

What a rude awakening I received on a visit to Southside with an overseas group in October 2023 to see that among the many vacant buildings previously refurbished in the 1990s, one on the corner of Harbour and High Holborn Streets was being patrolled by military personnel with rifles alert. As these soldiers walked along abandoned stairwells and through windowless rooms, I realised then that the issues surrounding the city of Kingston are far greater than building-restoration projects. Sharpe was correct!

Why has the city of Kingston been carved into various project segments that exclude residential neighbourhoods and carry primary focus on commercial interventions and large-scale developments? Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) 2023 Hall of Fame Inductee Howard Mitchell asked in October, are we building a politically tribal or individualistic society? We should go beyond building infrastructure and physical roads, continued Mitchell, but to build a society in terms of our people, “… the human element … makes everything work …”. Where is the integration/intersection of the Kingston Restoration Company ‘Downtown Kingston Vision 2020’ with that of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce ‘New model’ carried in The Gleaner on July 20, 2020, and the PSOJ as challenged by Mitchell? Will developers give back to the city? Is there a development social transfer that may refurbish the Bournemouth Baths on the Kingston Harbour as recreation for the people?

I commend highly the city of Kingston vision-casting presented in December 2023 by the landscape architecture students and their lecturers from the University of Pennsylvania. This delivery followed their visit to Kingston in October 2023. Their proposal united the city of Kingston northerly from Heroes Park through the ‘Beat Street’ music districts established by the ‘Sounds and Pressure’ team then linked the Parade as an important public space in the city to proposed activities on the Harbour-front.

I contend that any consideration of Kingston waterfront developments that omits the value of the Parade and Heroes Park along with the people residing in between and their livelihoods is destined for failure. This was the lesson learnt as I watched the soldiers conduct manoeuvres inside previously restored buildings.

The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘project’ as an individual or collective enterprise that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim while ‘programme’ is a set of related measures or activities with a particular long-term aim. Therefore, I call for the integrated collaboration of all entities to build in 2024 long-term programmes for the city of Kingston.

Let us built a city without physical and social barriers in 2024. Let us identify the historic urban landscape containing its integrated environment to build significance and inclusion for all Jamaicans to own, respect, and present the city of Kingston to the world as theirs.

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.