MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Mayor of Mandeville and chairman of the Manchester Municipal Corporation Donovan Mitchell says he has not given up on the dream of this south-central town being considered as Jamaica’s third city.

“I really do believe that Mandeville should really be looked at as the third city for Jamaica. Yes, we don’t have a seaside or coast and all of that, but that is what you are running from. If there was to be a tsunami, all our major towns which have been looked at for a third city… would flood,” he told the Jamaica Observer last week.

The Urban Development Corporation (UDC) began pre-assessment studies in 2017 to identify a site to establish Jamaica’s third city — after Kingston and Montego Bay.

Mitchell said that in the event of natural disasters affecting low-lying areas, Mandeville would be ideal for operations as it is over 2,000 feet above sea level.

“You would need an area where, if something is to happen and you have all that sort of flooding, the centre of things is somewhere up on a hilltop that can manage and operate,” he said.

However, Mitchell said the town needs resolutions to its longstanding problems, which successive administrations have failed to resolve.

Mandeville, and surrounding communities, have struggled with water shortage for decades, with town elders insisting over a period of many years that the problem has hindered growth.

The Pepper well field, downslope at low altitude in St Elizabeth, is the main source of water for Mandeville.

Mitchell said he is disturbed that wells which were used to supply water to the now-mothballed Windalco/Kirkvine bauxite/alumina plant have not been tapped into to help alleviate Mandeville’s water crisis.

“We still have this amount of water that they own, based on their pumping station and wells in the Porus area, which if tapped into and merged with the [National Water Commission] water system, Mandeville should not be having any water problem,” he said.

He said the south-central town is poised for development as it is becoming attractive for housing with the US$188-million May Pen to Williamsfield leg of the east-west corridor of Highway 2000 now under construction.

The project — which will reduce travel time between Kingston, Mandeville and points west — was originally scheduled for completion in October 2022 but has been extended to March 2023.

“A lot of people leave Mandeville on a Monday morning and go into Kingston and come back on a Friday afternoon. With the highway coming into Mandeville from Williamsfield, which will take 45 minutes from Kingston to come to Mandeville, urbanisation would somewhat ease because people would no longer want to go into Kingston to live,” he said.

“Mandeville is a very beautiful place. People can come here, live, raise their families, but it is a matter of how we do it,” he added.

He said the municipal corporation has seen a boom in the housing stock and that there is a great demand for land.

“…People are calling us asking if there is any land we know of that can be used to do housing,” he said.

He added that people are considering Mandeville as an alternative for housing over other parishes.

“…But it is a matter of getting people together, the powers that be to say ‘We are going to invest in Mandeville and bring it to a certain level,’ ” he said.

He said the town continues to struggle with congestion and inadequate space in its centre for facilities such as transportation centres.

“Mandeville town was never planned… the town emerged. Mandeville was that little quiet tea and coffee town so in terms of bus parks and all of that and the outlay… that was never envisaged properly,” he reasoned.

He said a plan for the Mandeville market to be redeveloped through a public-private partnership into a multi-storey centre was shelved years ago.

“I don’t know why. We had done a whole lot of studies, we have done the consultations; the consultants came from the United Kingdom. All the paperwork was done. We were only just to go to the Development Bank of Jamaica for them to put it out to tender to get a public-private partner that we could do what we wanted to do,” he explained.

“The situation was to take out the market — it is three and a half acres of land — that is one…. Have a transportation centre in the basement; the general ground provision type of markets on the ground floor. You do shops and haberdasheries on the second floor and then do additional parking,” he opined.

Mitchell said this would have alleviated the congestion in the town centre in terms of parking.

He said that “the only other aspect of urbanisation is to really do a new Mandeville.

“The new Mandeville will cost money because you need to go to Kingsland where there is a lot of land out there, 50 acres or so that was given to the Government,” he added.

The late former Custos of Manchester Dr Gilbert Allen was instrumental in getting Alpart (Aluminum Partners of Jamaica) to donate the land as it was his desire to see the Mandeville courthouse moved out of the congested town to Kingsland.

The historic Mandeville courthouse, which is said to be the oldest building in the town centre, was damaged by fire on November 7, 2019. The fire, which resulted in an estimated $35 million for repairs, forced judicial authorities to switch court trials to rented premises at James Warehouse Plaza, about 100 metres away from the centre of Mandeville.

In 2020 lands were acquired for the construction of a new courthouse on Brumalia Road, off Caledonia Road, a few hundred metres north of the old courthouse.

Soil testing was done at the location, adjacent to the Southern Regional Health Authority’s office, in 2020.

Mitchell said he is not satisfied that the proposed plan for where the courthouse is to be is the best decision.

“… Because you are moving the traffic from one area of the town to the other area,” he said.