Well-known attorney Gordon Brown says armed gang members from outside the community are thwarting his six-year-long effort to curb squatting on sections of 167 acres of land he owns in Flamingo Beach, Trelawny. Even a private security firm, he said, has refused the job of protecting the property from being further overrun.

Brown has submitted plans to the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) and the Trelawny Municipal Corporation (TMC) for an integrated development that includes resort and entertainment facilities in addition to a residential component, but he is unable to proceed as the land is littered with structures at various stages of construction.

In his view, apart from the TMC, which has publicly expressed concern about the stalled development, little has been done by State agencies to help him with his battle.

“Whilst I cannot say exactly how many acres have been squatted upon, what is unequivocal is that, since 2020, both personally and through the several attorneys who have assisted, I have made assiduous efforts to contain the festering squatting problem,” Brown said in a written response to the Jamaica Observer’s Real Estate on the Rock.

A fenced off area around building material and a structure under construction at Flamingo Beach in Trelawny.

“In the supervening five years since filing suit I have respected the rule of law and complied with all orders of the court. Regrettably, my experience has proven yet again that, in our nation, those who abide by the law and show restraint are met with contempt or indifference. Those who flout it are given safe harbour by the authorities, especially if muscular action is visited upon them,” he added.

He listed a litany of failed attempts to arrest squatting taking place on the land, starting with his lawyers’ appeal to NEPA in early May 2020 to use its powers to “require the demolition of all illegal structures on the property”. He said NEPA posted warnings on all the structures on the site, but they were ignored and the squatting continued unabated.

According to Brown, in mid-January 2021, his attorneys served all the squatters with notices to quit, referencing NEPA’s May 2020 warning. In February, he said, his lawyers wrote to the superintendent of police for Trelawny, alerting him that his team may be needed if the squatters got rowdy after being served with notices to leave the property. Then in March 2021 he tried to hire private security to patrol and protect the land in an effort to move the process along.

“They carried out investigations and declined to accept the assignment, as their checks revealed the credible presence of armed gang members from other communities who were in place to resist any efforts to impede the illegal construction,” said Brown.

This marked section of Flamingo Beach in Trelawny has been identified as being occupied without the owner’s consent.

He said his lawyers then appealed to the commissioner of police, in late March 2021, alerting him to “rampant suspected criminality” in the area and the impact it was having on his property.

“This was copied to several parties, including the chief of defence staff, member of parliament and others, but we received no response, save from the TMC,” said Brown.

“Early April 2021 I met with the TMC to present the estate’s case and its need for coordinated action by the municipality and the police to curtail and demolish the structures. Subsequent to a meeting with the deputy superintendent of works of the TMC on-site, the property caretaker was ambushed by armed thugs who warned him not to erect the signage that we had agreed with the TMC should be put in place to advise the squatters of imminent action,” he added.

Brown then sought help from the courts, filing a suit in May 2021 in which he named all the then-known squatters
— about 10 of them
— and provided a “generic description” of a handful of others who were not known. In the suit, he sought an order for possession of the property. According to Brown, he was “granted an injunction restraining the squatters from damaging the site’s ecology, carrying out further construction activity upon the premises, and other relief”.

A house under construction on land at Flamingo Beach in Trelawny. It is not being erected by Gordon Brown who says he is the legal owner of the land.

However, that did nothing to rein in the squatters, some of whom claim to own the land they occupy.

“Since that time there has been an explosion in the number of occupants. The injunction has been renewed pending final determination of the matter by the court. The occupants have falsely claimed that they have been in occupation of the premises for a period that would give them a possessory title to the parts of the premises occupied by them, but produced no evidence to support their claim. I have tendered video, aerial and geospatial evidence of the state of the premises as of the date of the court action [and before] which prove their claims untenable,” said Brown.

In explaining his claim to the land, he said he was the administrator of the estate of the late Carl Fei, an American who owned several parcels of land in Jamaica, including “approximately 167.25 acres at Flamingo Beach, Trelawny, near to the border of St James”.

“I was registered as the proprietor on November 11, 2005, but have been engaged with the affairs for the estate for many years prior to that date,” Brown told the Sunday Observer.

Two structures under construction on land occupied by squatters at Flamingo Beach in Trelawny.

The Flamingo Beach land issue came to public attention in September when Falmouth Mayor C Junior Gager raised an alarm during the TMC’s regular monthly meeting. He cited Flamingo Beach as one example of the growing problem of squatting in Trelawny which has resulted in the municipal authority being inundated with complaints from frustrated landowners.

“There is a submitted plan here for that property that will help to build Trelawny, but we cannot proceed because there is this problem of squatting,” Gager said of Flamingo Beach, naming Brown as the owner of the land.

During the meeting the mayor also referenced significant squatting on sections of 344.5 acres of land in an area called Tilston, Hague, where one acre has been informally settled; and Hague Cave Island, where four acres of the property have similarly been occupied. He also pointed to Cooper’s Pen in Trelawny
— where approximately 12 acres of the property had been informally occupied
— which had made news headlines following an August 11 early-morning demolition of about 20 structures by the private owner.

There is also a major development planned for Cooper’s Pen and the landowner has been fighting a legal battle for years to get squatters off the land. Brown pointed to similarities between that case and his struggles at Flamingo Beach.

“This débâcle bears all the portents of another Cooper’s Pen, only with more visible, painful results,” he said.

He outlined the ways in which State agencies have failed to act effectively.

“The police have been given statements by parties duped into ‘purchasing’ lots at Flamingo Beach by unscrupulous persons and received necessary information to investigate and prosecute same. No one has been charged,” Brown said.

“I have made several overtures to the police in Trelawny and at the level of the high command for their assistance to address the burgeoning criminality, but with only token support, limited to police escorts whenever court orders are posted on-site. Even equipment bearing insignia and markings of the Jamaica Defence Force has been observed on the site, engaged in illegal activity,” he alleged.

Insisting there can be no excuse for squatting, Brown lay the blame at the feet of successive administrations who have skirted around the issue. He said there has been a “collective refusal” to craft plans to install basic infrastructure on the 550,000 acres of land believed to be in the Government’s possession; pursue transparent divestment methodology and pricing; and put in place the technical staff and enforcement personnel needed in municipal corporations across the country to review and inspect building sites.

Pointing out that the bulk of the country’s housing stock is informal but it is “futile” to demolish them because of non-compliance, Brown argued that many squatters genuinely want to be legitimate owners of property, but the State has failed to put the necessary channels in place.

“Many squatters pay for lands which they occupy
— just not the legitimate owner. Squatters spend large sums for palatial homes on lands they do not own. There is clearly no issue of their ability to afford land, which represents 10 per cent or marginally more of the cost of overall development,” he argued.

“Given an opportunity to acquire lands owned by Government legitimately, those in search of lands [who become squatters] would do so. However, the State must make lands affordable, while ensuring that both the subdivisions and intended development of them are orderly and comply with structural integrity for the safety and health of the intended inhabitants. Formal infrastructure in the form of paved roads and electricity are never a feature of communities that have been squatted,” Brown said.

“These services typically follow after an informal settlement has been established and there is pressure on a member of parliament to support it. These become far more costly to implement because there is no planning of these communities; service roads are twice as long, etc. It is therefore only logical for the State to lead with low-cost, basic infrastructure
— serviced lots in locations with sufficient proximity to main/arterial roads, etc,” Brown added.

He made it clear, however, that he was not excusing the behaviour of those who have stalled his plans at Flamingo Beach.

“These [plans] cannot exist nor be pursued in the context of lawlessness and criminality,” Brown told the Sunday Observer.