THE technology is capable of identifying precise features of land parcels in as minute a detail as fire hydrants on a corner or a backyard garden.

SHAW... discussing land titling under LAMP (Photo: Herbie Gordon)

And, now there is a move to incorporate cadastral mapping into legislation as a planning tool for the development of real estate and even neighbourhoods.

The computerised technique is being piloted in Portmore, but there are plans to map the entire Jamaica, for the registration and identification of land titles, planning for land development, and trade in real estate.

Cadastral mapping captures the legal boundaries of parcels of land in a locality or an entire country and shows the relations and divisions.

It also stores information on ownership, and gives the attributes or precise descriptions of land lots.

In short, it captures the image of the property and its details.
Information for the map is collected using field surveys of unregistered parcels and existing survey records.
The method is used by countries such as the United States, Sweden and others in Europe.

Jamaica has been trying for 40 years, since the 1960s, to launch the computerised mapping system, but made little headway - getting only as far as experimentation.

Trevor Shaw, director of surveys and mapping at the National Land Agency, said the early experiments in cadastral mapping were abandoned because of the high costs of getting the system up and operational at that time.

But in the ensuing decades, "the need for it was always felt," Shaw told Sunday Finance.

The turning point was the headway made with Geographical Information System or GIS technology, which allows for computerising and data storage of land survey information.

But, said Shaw, there was also renewed determination by survey experts.
"We feel that it is time we really get serious about this," said the director.

This determination was behind the creation of the Land Administration and Management Project - LAMP - in 2000, which began with funding from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

The group has used cadastral mapping in a pilot project to regularise the titling of approximately 30,000 parcels in St Catherine.

Up to March, 18,000 parcels had been titled.
"We are hoping that this can be extended across the island," said Shaw.

Legislation for cadastral mapping is now before Parliament, promulgated by Minister for Land and Environment Dean Peart, who, speaking in the House, described the production of a cadastral map of Jamaica as "a necessary tool for the improvement of Land administration as it is used to define property boundaries and owners."

Shaw says the technology has various advantages:
For the state, it gives more information on the existing infrastructure of areas to be developed, particulars including the proprietor, the address and the size of the land.

It can assist the commissioner of lands in land valuation exercises, by relating parcels of land to other defined parcels in the area.

For private property owners, it cuts back on the time to register lots and generate titles, and saves on cost since the cost of the survey would be borne by government.

The computerised data of the map and the well defined boundaries of the parcels of land would also minimise dual registration of titles.
"Problems like this would be minimised and eliminated," said the survey director.

He added that whether landowners desired a title or not, they would have a better appreciation of the size and arrangement of their property without having to do their own survey.

Shaw noted that the anticipated increased registration and titling of land would allow more people to use their real estate holdings as collateral for loans to develop their land assets, and would stimulate greater trade in properties.
"When people don't have titles, oftentimes they tend not to invest in the land," he said.

Some persons, he added, have valuable pieces of land "put down" and undeveloped because they are without a title.
He noted that some farmers would only plant cash crops because of the lack of security of a title.

Similarly, other property owners without a title may be wary of developing infrastructure of their land.
Shaw hopes that a cadastral map of the island can change this and help to stimulate the Jamaican real estate sector and economy.

The mapping of Jamaica will take years, Shaw noted, adding that his team was doing further assessments of the scope of the job and timelines.

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