BLACK RIVER, St Elizabeth — A business leader here, while welcoming the Government’s push for an urban centre development near Black River, has maintained that businesses dependent on the coastal area, like safari tours, are key to keeping the town alive.

“Other businesses who may not have the recourse of relocating — for example the wharf, and or businesses that use the waterway as part of the services they offer, for example the [Black River] Safari Tours — the hope is that careful consideration will be given to other sectors such as tourism that can boost and continue the economic viability of these establishments,” president of the Black River Chamber of Commerce Kadian Myers-Brown told the Jamaica Observer last Friday.

“… Even if we have a new economic hub, the hope is that the ‘old town’ will be redesigned to maintain its historical integrity and relevance, that will further drive other small and medium enterprises [for which] relocation would not be an option,” she added.

She was responding to questions posed by the Sunday Observer days after Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness reopened Black River Hospital on the first anniversary of Hurricane Melissa making landfall in Jamaica.

Holness reiterated that the Urban Development Corporation, which has been tasked with identifying lands close to Black River, is to develop plans for an urban centre that is robust and resilient.

“The idea is not to abandon Black River. The idea is to move the critical services and critical businesses out of the zone of inundation… into a location that we can defend, secure and continue to have the critical services during and immediately after a devastating weather event.

“The idea could never be to kill off this historic town of over 300 years of history, but we have to be strategic. What kind of services would we want to put here? We would locate services and businesses that if a hurricane [should] blow them down today, they can get up back tomorrow, fixed up and start again,” Holness said.

He said the future of Black River has to be strategic in the era of climate change.

“We know the cost of that exposure, and we cannot spend billions repairing public buildings only to leave them in the same vulnerable location and face the same losses when the next major hurricane arrives,” he said, while also pointing to the need for relocation of residents in Parottee and businesses in Black River.

“I understand the connection that you have to your community, to your property, to the land, and no Government should try to disrupt that,” he added.

However, he reiterated that disasters are happening with greater frequency.

“[Natural disasters are occurring] with greater intensity…. They are overlapping, so you get Hurricane Beryl, then you get a tropical storm, then a major drought, then Hurricane Melissa, then drought, then the El Niño,” he said.

“The country now has to incorporate in its development plan both its spatial development, meaning where it decides to develop, and its fiscal development, meaning how it plans and puts aside resources to treat with it,” he added.

He said the redevelopment could result in private land acquisition.

“It may mean that we have to purchase the property that you have here for some people — not for everyone — and then we say, ‘Here is an equivalent property in this new location that is available to you.’ There may have to be arrangements like that,” he said.

Myers-Brown said the viable recovery of the business sector in Black River is at the forefront of the minds of owners and operators.

“Hurricane Melissa brought on the final blows to what was an already weakened economic structure. In the wake of this, though, for most business operators, the process seems slow. The vision, as expressed for a newly built urban centre for Black River, is welcomed, especially on the premise that business operators and owners will remain first and top priority to benefit from spaces within this centre to come,” she said.

In the building out of the new urban centre and the redesigning of what will inevitably become the “old town”, the people are continuing their quest for further and constant consultation with the relevant authorities to ensure that Black River’s development is an inclusive process, she added.

Holness announced that more Government services are being returned to Black River, including a mobile tax unit to serve as a tax office as of this week.

“We will ensure that critical services are restored, like your hospital service… but the long-term approach is that the hospital really cannot stay here. Though the roof may not be blown off in the next weather event, it is highly likely that you won’t be able to access the hospital,” he said.