UNFAZED by the recent resignation of key member, Winston Dear, and dwindling interest from the Montego Bay Community, the Greater Montego Bay Redevelopment Company is moving ahead with its plans to bring about orderly development in the tourist resort.

However, they have changed their focus from getting their $10m development plan to the stage of a legal Development Order. Instead, they will be focusing on implementing aspects of the plan, and the sale of municipal bonds to provide the funding needed for these projects.

“We are positioning ourselves as public developers to take on projects not readily taken on by the private sector, but which are critical to the growth of Montego Bay,” said GMRC member, Dave Allen. To this end, Allen added that they were currently looking at various financial instruments, including floating municipal bonds for the Montego Bay community, as well as scouting for foreign investors to become involved in the development of the city.

According to him, the GMRC will focus on projects such as the long awaited convention centre, the revitalisation of the city’s waterfront district, the upgrading of the inner-city areas, and the relocation of the abattoir, which will then be converted into a revenue generating meat processing complex.

But central and local government have long mooted some of these same ideas, and some critics have even questioned whether the GMRC is really necessary. Dear recently made it clear that he no longer feels that the GMRC is relevant. He had suggested further that the organisation allow the state run Parish Development Committee to take on projects of the nature now being proposed by Allen and others, arguing that such a move would open the door for them to be funded by local government.

But according to Allen, the GMRC is still relevant and has a role to play.

“There is no overlapping (of duties or projects),” he charged. “The parish council is not a development agency, and so we need a public development company. In Kingston they have the Kingston Restoration Company. At the recent PDC meeting, a task force was established to examine the GMRC Plan, the scope of which has now been expanded to include the total parish of St James,” said Allen.