We are Ready Minister Tufton!

The following is a press statement which was issued by the Trafalgar Council on April 17, 2008

Agriculture Minister Dr Christopher Tufton, has received the backing of the Trafalgar Council for his initiatives to establish a residential fruit tree and an urban agriculture programme. In making his contribution to the 2008/9 Budget Debate, Dr Tufton also gave a commitment that “we will make Jamaica green again, and we are ready to partner with every Jamaican householder, in every community, and every district to achieve these objectives”. However, in lending their support to these initiatives and commitments by the Agriculture Minister, the Trafalgar Council is also concerned that the current development approval process adopted by both the KSAC and NEPA which allows setback distances of a mere five (5) feet per floor from the boundary line and a strategy of increasing the density ratios from 30 to 50 habitable rooms per acre where there is a central sewer line, is inimical to any environmental regeneration exercise in the Corporate Area.

Indeed, under Minister Tufton’s backyard gardening initiative, “participating residents will each be encouraged to devote a minimum of 30 square feet of yard space, to producing two to four crops per year”. However, as President of the New Kingston Citizens Association and Trafalgar Council executive member Sean Newman points out, “in most of the newly approved construction projects, the plot ratios are excessive leaving in some cases a clearance of less than 5 feet from the boundary lines and therefore providing absolutely no green space for the residents”. Hence, the Trafalgar Council is calling for a revisiting of the 5 feet per floor set back regulation as implemented by the KSAC and NEPA and would propose that there be a prescribed degree of coordination between the Ministry's initiative and these regulatory bodies to ensure programme optimization.

In this regard the Council notes that this issue yet again highlights the flawed process of oversight, by the Local Authority (KSAC) and NEPA, which have responsibility for enforcement but which have inexplicably continued to ignore the flagrant breaches which obtain in Seymour Lands (Golden Triangle), Trafalgar Park and the residential sections of New Kingston. The Seymour Lands community in particular is in the midst of a construction boom and therefore knowledge of an effective monitoring mechanism within the KSAC and NEPA and the requisite assurances of a willingness to act on such breaches with dispatch, are critical to the collective interests of all. Indeed already there are projects in the community, where construction has been effected on top of adjoining boundary walls and yet others where the setback distances are so low that it overlooks and overshadows adjoining premises.

“We are ready, Minister Tufton” says Trafalgar Council Convenor Joseph Cox, “we are supportive of any initiative which preserves the environment and have expressed our concerns repeatedly about our communities being transformed literally into concrete jungles”. However, with the current development approval strategies employed by both the KSAC and NEPA the single critical issue remains, “Where do we plant these trees and crops?”