A proposal by Opposition Leader Andrew Holness for the construction of “a new city” has not won support from the Jamaica Developers’ Association.

According to President Michael Lake, this is not what the country needs at this time.

“Certainly not. From where I stand, Kingston itself has a fair amount of infrastructure that is being underutilised,” Lake said in an interview with the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

Last week, Holness, in his contribution to the 2013/14 Budget Debate, said the Government should start the process of urban renewal and logistics planning by developing a properly planned town with housing, schools and social facilities, and an urban district between Spanish Town and May Pen.

“We need to build a new city,” Holness said, as he gave what he said was a recommendation that would kick-start growth and solve part of Jamaica’s peculiar investment but no-growth paradox.

But yesterday, Lake said management of already existing resources could solve that problem.

“We have moved away from our inner-city development per se, and have developed the perimeter of Kingston and St Andrew with housing, and those development areas outside the inner cities lack the level of infrastructure. In other words, there is sewage, electricity, transportation in place in the inner city (metropolitan areas),” Lake said.

“What we need to be able to do is try and redevelop our inner cities. There is no need to be going outside to Clarendon and St Catherine, all we are doing is increasing the costs to the homeowners,” he contended.

“When we develop our inner cities, persons don’t have to have vehicles anymore; that cost is eliminated and they can move around with public transportation because everything will hopefully be within walking distance and that is where I believe they need to be going towards,” Lake noted.

“Inner city is a general term some persons use to refer to our ghetto areas, and obviously what we are mainly referring to is transforming our ghetto areas to higher density. The truth is, our metropolitan cities have not been developed to achieve higher densities. We need to put more money into it, stop avoiding it,” Lake explained further.

“We are talking about redeveloping downtown Kingston; it is not going to be developed unless the Government significantly takes the lead,” he added.

In the meantime, he said the development of rural areas could not be ignored, an issue which would not be addressed by developing a new city such as the one proposed by the leader of the opposition.

Holness last week, in selling the idea, said if Government adopts the plans and realises the saving from the public sector, it could then use only one $11-billion tranche from the National Housing Trust (NHT) to seed the project.

Holness’ new city proposal is not novel. In 2003, then Prime Minister PJ Patterson, delivering a speech during the opening of Highway 2000, announced plans to facilitate the founding of a proposed New Town in Clarendon on some 22,000 acres of land in the Inverness, Hunt’s Pen, and Collman Cockpit area as one of several millennium projects to complement the highway.

He said the project, to be spearheaded by the NHT, fitted within the macro planning for the south coast of the island in order to provide an alternative focus and absorb much of the future growth beyond the Kingston Metropolitan area, reduce population pressure on the major urban areas and facilitate commuting from urban areas to the city. It is yet to materialise.