By Omar Anderson, Staff Reporter 
Seymour
IN A bid to rescue the Corporate Area from further deterioration, 10 private and public sector bodies, supported by World Bank funding, will this morning sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the establishment of the Kingston and St. Andrew Sustainable Development Project (KSASDP).
The project, as stated in the MOU, will pursue the development of strategies to integrate economic, ecological, and social development within a framework of good governance.
Initiatives resulting from this project could see Kingston and St. Andrew (KSA) exploring linkages and sharing information with international cities such as London, Miami and Florida.
News of the project came yesterday from Morin Seymour, executive director of the Kingston Restoration Company (KRC), who was the guest at yesterday's monthly Gleaner Editors' Forum.
"There must be a programme that articulates the development of the city," he said. "Kingston and St. Andrew was started to develop and expand at a geometric rate and that must be ordered on some kind of sustainable planning basis."
Setting up the project will cost some $US596,000 (J$28m), with the World Bank's Cities Alliance Project providing a grant of some $US$250,000. The project will come into effect immediately after the stakeholders sign the MOU at Terra Nova Hotel in Kingston. The KSASDP will last until September 31, 2004 if there's no amendment, termination or extension of the project.
The partners in the project are the Social Development Commission (SDC), which has committed $US75,870 in sponsorship and the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) which is expected to provide part-time technical assistance to prepare the KSA plan and contribute the necessary personnel, materials, facilities, services and other project requirements.
The other partners on board are the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC), the KSA Parish Development Committee, the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development, the National Environment and Planning Agency, the Environmental Action Programme, the Town and Country Planning Authority, the Ministry of Land and Environment and Kingston Restoration Company.
Mr. Seymour said that the KSAC will be the lead agency in the sustainable project, because of the amount of land its owns in Kingston and St. Andrew.
However, questions were raised yesterday about the KSAC's lead role, after its failed attempts over the past year to bring order to the seemingly intractable vending problem in the downtown Kingston commercial district.
"The KSAC has to be strengthened, because if you look back at the articles of memorandum, it is intended to be a very strong corporation to manage the city," said Mr. Seymour, who added that the KSASDP is intended to strengthen the municipality.
"My position is to strengthen the KSAC. It has not been strengthened. It remains very weak for all kinds of reasons, hence some of the problems we have been having," the KRC's executive director said.
Meanwhile, figures in the MOU showed that a total of $US251,290 will be spent on local sustainable and development planning, by far the most spent on any of the project's five segments.
When sustainable and development planning is broken down, some $US152,695 will be spent on research and assessment.
In a year's time, the KSASDP will focus on an inner-city renewal programme, to show demonstrable results and keep momentum alive during the lengthy participatory planning process.
In this regard, the KSA PDC will prioritise two early actions targeting the reduction of urban poverty. This includes supporting the work of a task force comprising vendors, commercial enterprises and officials, to build consensus on the design of these initiatives in ensuring funding commitments and to monitor their implementation.
The inner-city renewal action programme will also focus on designing and implementing a sustainable economic development strategy and community-based projects, like micro-enterprises, waste management, and sustainable tourism initiatives.
