ARCHER

WESTERN BUREAU:

SOME 20,000 affordable housing units must be built between Ocho Rios and Westmoreland within the next five years or additional squatter communities will spring up, says Incorporated Masterbuilders Association president, Michael Archer.

"It is our contention that if those 20,000 houses are not built, we will be encouraging the kind of housing conditions that is now taking place in some of the overcrowded inner-city violence-prone communities such as in Montego Bay," Mr. Archer told The Gleaner.

He said one of the spin-offs to the lack of proper planning in relation to social structure is that people have to find somewhere to live.

"One of the ways to address that is to provide affordable housing for workers. This is something that government must pay attention to, because the lack of emphasis on facilitating the development of social infrastructure such as housing, public transport, sewer treatment and solid waste disposal facilities are in fact lagging behind the commendable thrust in hospitality infrastructure that is now taking place along the north coast," he said.

"We are trying to lobby with government to focus on those areas to ensure that we provide the social services that are needed to support that sort of development. If this is done they can then enforce more vigorously the issue of the prevention of squatting."

The objectives of the Incorporated Masterbuilders Association are to maintain standards of excellence in the building and construction industry and to act as a lobbying group on matters that affect its members.