IRWIN, St James — Ed Bartlett’s St James East Central constituency now has the potential to become even bigger, with keys being handed out to owners of the 144-unit Unions Acres development in Irwin.

“Wherever you are coming from, you now belong to me,” Bartlett jokingly told the 50 people who received house keys during a ceremony on Wednesday, after telling them they had better “be nice” to Prime Minister Andrew Holness and even nicer to him, their new MP.

If they were not already registered to vote in East Central St James, these voters will need to visit an Electoral Office of Jamaica office to have their votes transferred before they can be eligible to vote for either Bartlett or his opponent.

According to the MP, before the new voters from Unions Acres are added, the PD already has 1,500 registered voters. He is looking forward to it growing.

“Hurry up and come and let us add some more and, in fact, satisfy everybody that there’s no bigger PD ever than this one,” Bartlett said as he continued the joke and causing sections of the audience to chuckle.

Bartlett has been MP for the constituency since 1993 after relocating from St Andrew.

During Wednesday’s ceremony he spoke of the importance of the growth Irwin has seen in recent years and wider implications for the parish.

“The development of this area will augment the expanding dormitory community that the Irwin area is representing, not just in Saint James, but in the country,” he pointed out.

One of the toll gates of the much-anticipated Montego Bay Perimeter Road will be close to Unions Acres, a gated community of one- and two-bedroom houses. Its 31 two-bedroom houses are being advertised for between $16 million and $16.5 million. The smallest lots are 3,078 square feet.

The project took a while to get started after Holness broke ground for it in 2022 until the developer, Can Cara, pumped more funds into it. Work is still ongoing on some of the houses, and on Sunday poles were being installed by the Jamaica Public Service Company Ltd. Ahead of Wednesday’s ceremony the pace of work being done on the perimeter wall picked up and efforts were made to use dirt and marl to fill out massive potholes in the road leading into the neighbourhood.

In his address, Bartlett spoke of the need for those who have purchased houses to work together to truly make it a community.

“These houses that are built here are mere monuments of block and steel. They have very little value unless occupied by people and the people are only valuable if they form communities. If they have shared values, if they act together, if they develop strong relationships, if they are able to respond to each other, to care for each other, to care about each other and to protect each other,” the MP urged.

“I’m excited about helping you to create those very important attributes to build community and as your member of parliament, I can let you know that we will be with you to ensure that we make Unions Acres the finest community in all of Irwin, to begin with, all of St James next, and all of Jamaica,” Bartlett added.

He thanked the National Housing Trust (NHT) for the support provided and indicated that he is looking forward to future developments in his constituency.

“I’m very honoured to say that you’ve already delivered over 3,000 units into the constituency and you have another 1,500 to deliver shortly,” the MP said.

“I look forward to breaking ground with you for Barrett Hall, and for Spot Valley and we’ve done that, you would have delivered 5,000 units to the constituency of East Central St James,” Bartlett continued.

Unions Acres is a collaboration between the NHT, the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions (JCTU) and the Jamaica Civil Service Association (JCSA). Over the next few years, the goal is for another 3,531 houses to come on the market in St James.

“In Canterbury, we have 86 units under the Community Renewal Programme. [Work begins] in February 2025, and they will be ready in August 2026. In Comfort, again, 180 units under the Community Renewal Programme starts June 2025 and will be ready in August 2026,” Holness said during Wednesday’s ceremony.

Other projects include Estuary Phase Two, which will deliver 936 units. The joint-venture project started in August 2019 should be completed in March 2026. Another 217 units will be constructed in Adelphi as part of the NHT’s Guaranteed Purchase Programme (GPP), starting April 2025, with a scheduled completion date of September 2028.

“Brookside Estates in Spot Valley will have 403 units, again under our GPP Programme. That will start in December of this year and be completed in September 2026. Barrett Hall, under the Developers Programme, should start in March 2025, and that’s 1,565 units. That should be ready in February of 2029,” Holness added.

He said of the 43,000 houses to be built across the country, 9,837 will be built in western Jamaica.