The Bureau of Standards Jamaica (BSJ) will shortly commence the development of affordable houses utilising bamboo, from a $54-million donation by the National Housing Trust (NHT).

According to Director of Special Projects at the BSJ, Gladstone Rose, the project will get under way in February, with demonstration units being placed at various NHT sites for the construction sector to have first-hand view of the houses.

“We expect that this is going to reduce the cost of housing. We hope that enough people will invest in this, and Jamaicans will buy the houses because they are more affordable and will be built to standards, so they will be quality houses,” he said at a recent bamboo seminar, held at the agency’s Winchester Road offices, in St Andrew.

Rose said that the building sector is being encouraged to utilise the bamboo technology, noting that “we have to build to withstand earthquakes and hurricanes, and this is what bamboo will help us to do.”