THE MINISTER of Housing in Jamaica has the power to declare any area he deems fit, to be a housing area.
The Housing Act of 1968 creates the Minister responsible for Housing as a Corporation Sole, which allows him to have perpetual succession (from one Minister of Housing to the next) and to acquire, hold and dispose of land and other property of whatever kind.
But even with that kind of power, former Minister of Housing, Easton Douglas, said he had to act on the recommendations of the technocrats, the people with the know-how - the land surveyors, the engineers, the architects, the parish councils and the environmental agencies. He had to work with everyone set up by law, to ensure that an area was safe to develop.
The Housing Minister, explains Mr. Douglas, has the power to ignore the recommendations of the technocrats but those recommendations, he says, were invariably compelling.
"I (as Housing Minister) would not approve anything I did not get positive feedback about," explained Mr. Douglas. "If my memory serves me correctly, all of them concerned (the technocrats) gave positive feedback on Kennedy Grove."
AN UNWRITTEN RULE
But one source at one of the chief organisations involved in recommending sites for the Government told The Gleaner that it is almost an unwritten rule that the minister's wishes are generally sanctioned by them. Maybe someone forgot, the source said, but someone compromised the rules in the development of the Kennedy Grove and Nightingale Grove housing schemes.
It's time to start paying attention again, and people like Valerie Levy, one of the nation's leading real estate agents, agree. "I think definitely if they (developers/Government) haven't started (paying attention to laws) yet they need to start now.
"Even in St. Andrew there are basement units being flooded out because houses were built over springs. But those homes that we see flooded out are mostly joint ventures with the NHT," she said. "Developers are not paying attention to the sites that are being developed. A lot of developments are happening today that we can't even explain. I don't think they are doing it with knowledge."
Many people buying into joint housing projects between the Government and private developers allow themselves a level of trust because the Government is involved, explained Mrs. Levy. They aren't expecting a situation like Kennedy Grove or Nightingale Grove.
"You have to remember," she says. "You are dealing with people who are not that sophisticated to ask the right questions, to go into drainage, soil conditions. In many of these instances people don't use real estate people because they trust that the NHT would be doing that for them."
NO RESPONSE
The National Housing Trust's (NHT) spokesman, Donovan Francis, has not responded to a list of questions that The Gleaner sent to him on November 29. Several follow-up telephone calls were not answered either.
In a statement after the massive flooding of some housing schemes in October, Don Mullings, president of the Incorporated Master Builders Association of Jamaica, called for criminal charges against negligent contractors, engineers and public officials.
Much of the damage during the flood rains, he explained, has been blamed on faulty engineering and approval in this regard. He says the Government needs to be proactive in ensuring that the individuals, at whatever level, under whose charge shoddy work may have been done, are held accountable.
