Consultations on National Housing Policy Wrap up Tomorrow

The Ministry of Water and Housing is slated to wrap up its series of consultations on the National Housing Policy and Implementation Plan on Thursday (Sept. 24) with a public forum scheduled for the University of Technology (Utech), Papine, St. Andrew at 6:00 p.m.
Thursday’s meeting is one of four, targeting technical stakeholders and the general public to facilitate discussions and input by interest groups.
The previous sessions were held on September 16 and 17 in Montego Bay St. James and on Wednesday (Sept. 23) at the Ministry’s New Kingston offices.
A draft of the original policy, containing critical strategies for the delivery of at least 10,000 new housing solutions by the 2010/11fiscal year, which was developed by a group of consultants from the University of the West Indies (UWI), and UTech, was initially presented to the Ministry in February.
The document was reviewed by a technical committee, established by Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Genefa Hibbert, and comprised representatives of the Housing Agency of Jamaica (HAJ), National Housing Trust (NHT), Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), and Jamaica Mortgage Bank (JMB). Reviews were also conducted by an intra-Ministerial committee comprising several of the Ministry’s departments.
The reviews yielded several recommendations, which were forwarded to the experts for inclusion in a revised draft, which was submitted to the Ministry in July. The provisions of that document have been the subject of further reviews by both committees, as well as discussions in the consultations staged thus far.
Recommendations from the public consultations and the technical and intra-ministerial committees will be collated in a report, which will be forwarded to the consultants for consideration in the formulation of a second draft of the policy.
Focus is being placed on key factors such as: demographics; infrastructure; tenure, need, and financing; income distribution and affordability; land availability; and community participation.