Despite plans by the National Housing Trust (NHT) to provide 1,500 houses in the Corporate Area within the next three years, Prime Minister Andrew Holness says he has directed the agency to “expand their search for land within Kingston and St Andrew”.

“We have to provide housing in the city,” he told individuals attending last Wednesday’s handing-over ceremony for 32 duplex housing units at Majesty Gardens, a gritty community in the St Andrew South Western constituency.

Pointing out that the NHT, from its inception more than 40 years ago, has constructed about 8,000 solutions in Kingston and St Andrew, the prime minister said “We have a deficit” even while acknowledging that there is a shortage of land in the Corporate Area for housing.

He also said that while the NHT has done “fairly well on the mortgage side of things”, the question of why it “has been so slow in the construction of housing” remained.

“The supply side is where we have the challenge, because if we are going to build houses at scale and at pace we need large developers who can take on 10,000 and 20,000 houses at a time. We don’t necessarily have many of those developers in Jamaica but we are developing the capacity. But more than that, you need developers who can develop houses at the price point that people can afford,” Holness stated.

Hopes are being pinned on the 1,500 houses to be completed by the NHT in the Corporate Area between this year and 2025 at Metcalfe Street, Foreshore Estates, Maxfield Park, White Wing, Rasta City, Howard Avenue, Bell Rock, St Paul’s Lane, Surbiton Apartments, Penwood, Bay Farm Road, Ruthven Road Phase Two, and Vineyard Town.

Since its creation in 1976 the NHT has constructed some 150,000 houses.