A private developer, a number of government agencies and an external funding agency will be financing the first phase of Kingston’s new sewerage system, being fast-tracked to serve the National Housing Trust’s inner-city housing project.

The first phase of the housing development is set to begin in west and central Kingston in April and the sewerage system is expected to cost, at the most, US$45 million.

“You cannot have plans to restore downtown Kingston and to construct a housing project without the sewerage problem being solved once and for all,” NHT chairman, Kingsley Thomas, told the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation’s (KSAC’s) building and town planning committee last Wednesday.

Thomas was invited to the meeting to hear the committee’s concerns about the housing units that are to be constructed as part of the government’s urban renewal project.

A total of 5,000 dilapidated houses in west and central Kingston are to be replaced by medium-rise apartment blocks over three years but, starting in April, the first phase of 526 housing units are to be constructed in Denham Town/Little King Street ( 88), Trench Town (252), Greenwich Town and Spanish Town Road (186). The project will cost $5 billion with $3 billion for the new housing units, $1.5 billion for infrastructure and land, and half-a-billion for upgrading some of the existing structures.

Thomas told the Observer that an estimated US$35-$45 million was needed to construct treatment ponds on 400 acres of swamp lands at Soapberry, Six Miles, replace destroyed mains and lay sewer mains in western Kingston to take sewage to the treatment ponds.

Last Wednesday, the NHT met with the Urban Development Corporation (UDC), the National Water Commission (NWC) and other relevant agencies to discuss financing for the Soapberry project.

To be implemented in three principal stages, it will replace existing sewerage and create new capacity, as well as provide a new facility for Harbour View.

Feasibility studies for the project were done under the Project Preparation Facility extended to the NWC by the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) for the Kingston Water and Sanitation Project.

And according to Thomas, while the initial thrust of the inner-city development programme was to deal with improving communities surrounding the downtown business improvement district, it was recognised that there were other communities in need of rehabilitation. These include Tawes Pen in central St Catherine, west central St Andrew and the squatter settlement near the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Eastern St Andrew.

He said that the NHT had held meetings with the communities and had conducted surveys.

The plan is to have landscaped play areas, day care centres and areas for garbage collection included in the overall site development. It was also proposed to establish swimming pools in sections of the community. They would have opening and closing hours and would be monitored by trained lifeguards.

Thomas added that each block of buildings would have a fire escape system that had been approved by the fire department. In case of a fire, occupants could climb staircases on one side of the building, walk across the roof and go down staircases on the other side.

“We’re not providing palaces, but we are providing houses 100 per cent better than the quads,” Thomas said.