THE National Housing Trust (NHT) has invited bids from builders for the construction of cheap, new-style, medium-rise apartment complexes in what the Government will bill as a major, and qualitatively enhanced, assault against slum housing mainly in Kingston’s inner-city communities.

Government sources say that the first of these new schemes will be built in West Kingston, in the Denham Town/Hannah Town area, in an effort by the Government, based on the case put forward by NHT chairman, Kingsley Thomas, to win political support for the programme. The first scheme could start in the third quarter of this year.

Thomas himself yesterday declined to speak fully on what, initially, is a $3.6-billion plan to build 3,000 homes over the next three years, saying that Prime Minister P J Patterson will likely speak about the project during this month’s budget debate.

But Thomas stressed that the idea is to take a “holistic approach to housing development” based on a model he and Patterson reviewed while in Malaysia in February for the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement.

“We want to lift, fundamentally, the quality of life in the inner-cities, in this case with the provision of quality housing,” Thomas said.

Over the past week, the NHT has been running newspaper advertising seeking “partners in the development of medium-rise apartment blocks” as part of the Government’s Urban Renewal Programme.

“The proposal is for the construction of some 3,000 affordable urban housing units on sites to be selected over a period of three years,” the ads say.

The standard development on each site would be four-storey, walk-up apartment blocks.

One block will, on the ground floor, have commercial space and community facilities.

But Thomas, inspired by what he has seen in Malaysia, is hoping to having in these complexes, community centres, swimming pools and children play areas — “a real holistic community”.

But perhaps more critical, is the price at which Thomas and the staff at the NHT expect to deliver a 650 square feet, three-bedroom apartment in one of these complexes: $1.2 million, or the same price at which it delivers a 266 square feet, stand-alone quad in its current schemes. This, effectively, represents a 69 per cent reduction in the cost of the home.

Thomas has, for months, based on technical help received from Malaysia, been insisting on the possibility of such sharp reduction in the cost of delivering homes, arguing that it could be done in going for medium-rise apartments blocks and by developing a new partnership approach to developments between the NHT and the builders.

“We have been talking to the Malaysians and talking with local contractors and we are clear that it is entirely possible,” he said.

The NHT, a Government agency, is funded by a five per cent payroll contribution — two per cent paid by employees as a seven-year, no-interest loan, and the remaining three per cent by employers. The trust’s poorest beneficiaries have mortgage rates as low as two per cent, while those at the top end pay 12 per cent.

While the first of these projects in Kingston is likely to start in West Kingston, communities in areas such Spanish Town Road, Maxfield Avenue, South Side and Allman Town are also being scouted.

The project, in some instances, will mean razing buildings which now serve as people’s homes, which will require the NHT to first build decanting centres or transient housing for people who will be temporarily displaced. These residents would be returned to their new homes at the completion of the complex.

Thomas confirmed that the NHT was currently searching for sites to build these decanting centres, which would later become permanent homes.

However, Government officials had earlier said that a project could start almost immediately in West Kingston because lands had already been identified. “No one would have to be displaced,” said the source. “Politically, it makes sense that we start in West Kingston. It shows that this is a serious approach to attack decay in inner-city communities rather than an initiative to benefit ruling party supporters.”