More rooms per acre in Kingston - NEPA approves development plans
Published:Tuesday | January 16, 2018 | 12:00 AM
The provisional development order for Kingston and St Andrew now allows for 100 habitable rooms per acre in the community of Barbican, a 100 per cent increase from the specification set out in the 1966 order.
This change comes as the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) issued a provisional development order for the Corporate Area.
Executive director of NEPA, Peter Knight, said several areas in Kingston 6 and Kingston 8 would also see changes moving from 20 habitable rooms per acre to 30, and, in some instances, increasing from 30 habitable rooms per acre to 50.
The NEPA boss told members of the Public Accounts Committee yesterday that with the scarcity of land in the Corporate Area, there was the view that new developments should go vertical.
"We are looking at the order to allow that," Knight said.
FIVE-YEAR REVIEW
He said the confirmation of the development orders for Kingston and St Andrew and Port Royal has been delayed, as stakeholders deliberate on the question of "height and density".
A team from the Town and Country Planning Authority and NEPA is currently having discussions on the development orders.
At a recent training workshop at the Jamaica Conference Centre in Kingston, director of Jentech Consultants Limited, Dr Wayne Reid, raised concerns about development approvals in the Corporate Area.
He highlighted some residential and commercial facilities currently being developed in St Andrew without any proper research on the impact these will have on the water-supply network and the capacity of the sewerage system.
Meanwhile, Knight said that development orders for the entire island would be completed during the next financial year.
Several provisional orders have been published for St Mary, St Catherine, Clarendon, St Elizabeth, Westmoreland, Hanover and St Thomas.
Knight said plans for St James and Portmore, which is a specific development area, is now with the Office of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel for review. The St Ann order is now being revised.
NEPA said there are plans to review development orders every five years going forward.