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Development done right in Jamaica? Part 2, the mix of inclusion

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In yesterday’s blog post, we heard from Jamaican columnist and developer/ architect Carlton Cunningham, whose his mid-April Gleaner column describes his successful housing development, Old Harbour Glades, that has apparently replaced “the bad lands of Succaba Settlement”:

 

Jimmy_clliff

“Dem a loot, dem a shoot, dem a wail in shanty town”

 

His summary of how it was done, and why it worked, reads like extracts from an AHI manual of successful mixed-income affordable development in the global South:

 

Gleanerjamaica_building_hope_through_housing_cunningham_090519

Carlton Cunningham has a vision

 

[1] There was a master plan which included well-designed drains, high-quality central sewage treatment (tertiary level, meaning the effluent is clean water) and abundance of potable water from a dedicated well.

 

There ain’t no such thing as free infrastructure, and government must lead by creating an enabling rather than disabling environment:

 

[2] To counter the negative connotations of the squatter settlement and its strong correlation with crime and disorder, regular plots with full access to services were allocated to the poor and to the squatters.

 

The term of art is ‘sites and stands,’ and we’ve seen it around the world

 

Spanish_town_new_construction

New construction public housing, Spanish Town, Kingston, Jamaica

 

A regular grid of dirt roads.

 

[3] The next mission was to make the serviced plots affordable, through creative finance.

 

‘Creative’ is here a synonym for ‘efficiently subsidized’ … but that’s okay, affordable housing always costs money.

 

The Old Harbour Glades project, which has provided such a glimpse into the future, is a joint venture of the Building Societies Development Limited and the Government of Jamaica (Ministry of Water and Housing and National Housing Development Corporation), financed by private sector (HG012) funds from USAID.

 

In this case, it comprised a system of low-interest, internationally sourced loans and the development of cross-subsidies which assisted everyone with low to moderate incomes to afford the serviced lots.

 

The cross-subsidies had to involve government contributing land and infrastructure cheaply or at no cost … but again, that’s fine too. 

 

Building_jamaican_house

It’s always better to give people better housing

 

Urban land is one of the few valuable things government can contribute off-balance-sheet, and if you can get people onto a plot of land where they have secure tenure, and at least the embryo house, they become embryo owners, and homeownership improves their civic behavior.

 

[4] Open-market purchasers of all income levels were invited to buy into the development whose sectors were so spaced that successive areas were priced closer and closer to full market levels.

 

That’s brilliant – income mixing and gradually declining purchase-price subsidy.

 

But, would they come? After all, social stratification is natural and Jamaicans don’t like to mix!

 

WRONG! They came in droves; teachers, nurses, civil servants, members of the security forces, doctors, accountants, businessmen and returning residents as well as artisans, in response to national advertisement and were selected without a single reference to politics or religion.

 

I can’t tell you how heartening and affirming I find Mr. Cunningham’s exuberant secularism.  At AHI lately we’ve been hosting an MIT Humphrey Fellow, Mensur Hodzic, whose dream is to use ethnically-mixed affordable housing to create a healing microcosm in blasted and divided Sarajevo in his home county of Bosnia.

 

Well, I try to do the things that I want
Cause when you’re dead, you know that you can’t
I’d rather be a free man in my grave
Than living as a puppet or a slave
So as sure as the sun will shine
I’m gonna get my share right of what’s mine
And then the harder they come
The harder they fall, one and all (Ohh, ohh, ohh)


Give people a subsidy, and they will come:

 

They came, they bought, they built.

 

Give people personal equity in their community, and they will build it:

 

And, they taught us lessons.

 

Jamaican_schoolgirls

That’s because we Jamaicans are smart!

 

[1] They extracted unbelievable construction value from their NHT and building society loans.

 

Give people choice and they will use it.

 

[2] Their construction, for a decade, became a mainstay of the Old Harbour economy. They also provided continuous employment to many erstwhile squatters who viewed the newcomers as essential to their own well-being.

 

At Wilton Park a few weeks back, Sharad Shankardass, UN Habitat’s spokesperson, told me of his immense frustration trying to convince World Bank and other economists that economic growth by itself will not fix housing.  “Quite the reverse,” he said with as much heat as a superbly educated and cultured spokesman can manage, “housing will fix the economy!”

 

Jamaican_workers

Hard hats = hard cash

 

[3] Some built cleverly appointed rental units on top of the units they occupied.

 

Others built inter-generational units occupied by mom dad, adult children, visiting friends and relatives, giving security for the kids, flexibility for the parents.

 

Throughout the world, we see that people given a monolithic configuration layout will personalize and customize it into variations of multi-family housing.  That adaptation of tenure is nothing short of critical, and part of why the embryo house is so important.

 

[4] Planners can take a cue, since not everyone needs to own 100% of every dwelling.

 

Absolutely – rental is always undervalued, because everyone wants to be a homeowner, and every politician wants to finance more homeownership.

 

But the greatest lesson from the transformation is that poverty is a temporary state, transition from which depends upon ability and opportunity.

 

With beautiful views and good services, possession of registered titles in this community is gold, even if the roads show need of repair.

 

AHI Affiliate Solly Angel, a land-use specialist whom I find a never-ending source of insight, has been advocating an urban-investment theory of an arterial grid of dirt roads.  He’s got a big DRAFT-DO-NOT-QUOTE written on the piece but I think it’s brilliant anyway.

 

Solly_angel

Pleased to be called brilliant?  Solly Angel

 

Mr. Cunningham’s development is a tangible demonstration of Solly’s thesis.

 

So the inhabitants are not pre-occupied with conflict at the gates, but how to seize the day, transforming passive home equity into dynamic industrial wealth. Their opportunity is to unlock Hernando DeSoto’s Mystery of Capital.

 

The same thing applies to Nancy, who could leverage her wealth, register with NCU, become a state registered nurse and earn big money in the USA or Europe, while adding to remittances which are the mainstay of the Jamaican economy.

 

I’ve previously posted about remittances – we are convinced they’re the dark matter of the global south housing-economic universe. 

 

Instead, she was last seen in front of her substantial house waiting for a hand-out of a gas burner from Food for the Poor.

 

Spanish_town_market

Where do they live?  Market in Spanish Town

 

Such are the possibilities when ordinary people acquire capital, cease to think poor, are not diverted by the daily excesses of shottas in their communities and are not depressed by the inconvenience posed by the absence of basic services. With imagination, poverty can indeed be a temporary, not a permanent or natural state.

 

Adds the Gleaner, with British restraint:

 

A new phase of the project is being planned.

 

Perhaps, it is worth emulation.

 

Gleanerjamaica_building_hope_through_housing_cunningham_090519

Cheer up, Mr. Cunningham: it’s working

 

But as sure as the sun will shine
I’m gonna get my share of what’s mine
I said the harder they come
The harder they fall, one and all (Ohh, ohh, ohh)
I said the harder they come
Harder they fall, one and all (Yeah, yeah, yeah)
Break it down!



 


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