THE Government has promised that it will focus on more housing solutions for Jamaicans during the 2016/17 fiscal year, among them the stalled Housing Agency of Jamaica’s (HAJ) Bernard Lodge project in St Catherine.

The plan is to collaborate with private partners to conduct a comprehensive review of the proposed design “to eliminate unnecessary costs and delays”, Governor General Sir Patrick Allen said Thursday in his 2016/17 Throne Speech, at Gordon House.

Last October, HAJ Managing Director Karl Bennett told Parliament’s Public Administration and Appropriations Committee that construction on the development would finally start in December.

The project, which was to last for three years, was announced in February 2013 by then Housing Minister Dr Omar Davies, and was to have started in April of that year. The HAJ has been forced to refund close to $400 million of depositors’ monies because of the delay.

Meanwhile, construction is to begin at Reid’s Pen in Portmore, St Catherine, for 148 two-bedroom townhouses for the middle-income market, while in Shooter’s Hill, also in Portmore, construction is to start on 200 low-priced studio housing units.

Sir Patrick said also that at Vernon’s Drive in Montego Bay, St James, 90 one- and two-bedroom townhouses are to be built, while other priority sites have been identified at Ebony Vale and Angel’s Pen in St Catherine, as well as Hopewell Farms in Hanover, Bottom Pen in St James, and at several smaller sites across the Corporate Area. Additionally, units primarily for middle managers in the tourism sector are to be built at Grange Pen and Ironshore, in St James.

— Alphea Saunders