Dear Editor,

Why is the Up Park Camp lands being targeted for disposal and redevelopment by our present planning directorate? There are other prime acres of land in the KMA crying out for redevelopment. Leave Up Park Camp alone!

To us Kingstonians, it is our Queens Park Savannah, our St James Park and our Central Park for the city. Why do we feel we must pour concrete over it?

I predict that the day we convert Up Park Camp into another concrete jungle, a la Nannyville, Southborough and Bellevue Gardens, is the day we seal the Haitianisation of our beloved capital Kingston and, by extension, Jamaica. Five flights a day could not clear us out fast enough from the inevitable disaster.

We seem to have a special knack of heaping disasters on ourselves by the short-termism and third worldism of our thinking.

Why are we not focused instead on relocating the Tower Street Correctional Centre (aka GP) and redeveloping the lands in old Rae Town. These are prime lands. Rae Town was a top-notch location back in the days.

Other large tracts and acreages of abandoned, decaying zones are to be found all over the city, in Kingston Gardens, Allman Town, Central Kingston, Fletchers Lands, Mountain View, Rockfort, Wildman Street. Cumulatively, these acreages dwarf that of Up Park Camp.

Our minds should be focused on rebuilding these areas and reestablising viable communities, not as concrete jungles, but in a fine cosmopolitan style befitting the metropolis of the Caribbean, and befitting and reflecting our centuries of global influences.

Kingston is a truly global city, let’s not turn it into a Third World slum by design. Let’s take the high road and dream grande visions for the city. Envision the entire Tower Street zone redone in the finest Spanish traditions, incorporating the harbour’s vista, and teeming with global visitors to the city. It would be priceless.

Leave Up Park Camp alone, that’s the wrong focus altogether and only because it is seemingly the path of least resistance. A century from now when the densities of our capital’s geography would have increased many-fold, Kingstonians will need the precious lungs provided by Up Park Camp and other open spaces.

We need to be doing those things that will enhance urban living rather than those actions that will exacerbate the stress levels in the city. If the planners urgently want something to move, let them move the Riverton landfill out of the city.

There is a large body of international empirical data on what is beneficial and what is detrimental to developing urban spaces. Let’s tap into that and not be driven by motives which cannot stand up to rigorous scrutiny. Design enlightened redevelopments to help to stimulate the economy

I would recommend, Mr Editor, that the city fathers and the Parliament ensure that any major restructuring of the city, such as is contemplated by the sale of Up Park Camp, be subjected to the most rigorous urban planning analysis, including long-term impacts, community consultations/acceptance and two-thirds majority vote in the KSAC municipality and in both houses of Parliament.

Silburn Clarke

Kingstonian