The Housing Agency of Jamaica (HAJ) has been a hot topic following the official ground-breaking for the Catherine Estates development, a major real estate project in St Catherine that will put keys into the hands of 1650 low to middle income-earning Jamaicans.

This development fits squarely with the agency’s mandate, which is to make homeownership a realistic goal for more Jamaicans, especially low-income earners, civil servants, and other groups typically underserved by the commercial mortgage market.

A lesser-known feature of the agency’s work, however, is the continued improvement and upgrading of its legacy or brownfield projects －property developments and communities done, in some cases, without the necessary due diligence, created as part of the since discontinued Operation PRIDE.

Over the past five years the agency has undergone considerable management and operational changes. These adjustments have helped to streamline work, increase efficiency, and better enable the entity to do what it was designed to do – make and sell affordable housing. What was once a statutory body plagued by inefficiency now has several development projects in the works. Houses are being built and the public is taking note, and once again are willing to place trust in the HAJ.

While the HAJ’s current and future developments symbolise hope for so many Jamaicans, the agency remains saddled with the burden of incomplete Operation PRIDE projects. HAJ Chairman Norman Brown noted, “There is no denying the issues connected to legacy projects that we have inherited. Many Operation PRIDE communities have serious infrastructure problems that include, water, electricity and roads.”

He continued, “The work of the HAJ is not just about building houses, it’s also about improving the lives of Jamaicans. We do understand the challenges that residents face and have been working very hard to address them, which is why we have been working to fix these problems gradually. We would love to fix them all at once, however, the work involved in some instances is considerable and we too have constraints, resources being one.”

In the past few years the price tag for legacy project infrastructure upgrades carried out by the HAJ in communities across St James and St Mary has well exceeded $1 billion. These improvements include water, road and drainage construction, and sewage improvements. Some of the communities that have benefited are Norwood, Grange Pen, and Barrett Hall in St James, as well as Eden Park and Frontier in St Mary.

A lot of reparative work has been done, but there is still a far way to go, said HAJ Managing Director Gary Howell, adding, “As we create new homes for future homeowners, we are also concerned about the quality of life for those residents within these legacy projects. We acknowledge the specific infrastructure concerns of residents in places like Whitehall in Negril, as well as Eden Park and Frontier 2 in St Mary. In fact, the scope of our Operation PRIDE or brownfield projects is quite vast — 88 communities, with the most densely populated ones being in Montego Bay and St Ann, which is why the upgrades have to be done over time.”

Howell further stated, “The HAJ is 100 per cent self-funded, and our new projects are what assists in funding the infrastructure upgrades for the legacy projects. As you imagine, this presents some challenges. We are, however, fully committed to our brownfield residents and will continue the work to resolve these outstanding issues, one community at a time.”