Gareth Manning, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

Canterbury, one of Montego Bay's overcrowded inner-city communities. Overcrowding is considered one of the contributing factors to some of the social ills in society. - File

With half of Jamaicans living in overcrowded housing conditions, physical planners are advocating an urgent overhaul of land-use policies and less discrimination in the rental market.

According to planners, over-crowding threatens sustainable physical development, as well as adds to social problems, a point with which behavioural specialists agree.

The Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) reports in its recent publication of the 'Survey of Living Conditions 2006' that 50 per cent of Jamaicans were living in overcrowded conditions in 2006, a 1.3 percentage points increase between 2004 and 2006. The problem seemed to be more prevalent in the rural areas where 52 per cent of households were overcrowded, compared to other towns (47.8 per cent) and the Corporate Area (48 per cent), where households did not abide by the universal standard of placing a maximum of 1.01 persons in a single room.

University of Technology educator and physical planner, Dr Carol Archer, while sceptical of the data presented by the survey, says it is clear the the Government needs to revisit land-use policies and construction practices.

"We have to look at how we use our limited land as a small island developing state. We don't have the luxury of urban sprawl ... so we have to look at how we construct," Archer advises The Sunday Gleaner.

She underscores that over the years, there have been particular trends in construction which result in exceeding the capacity in some areas, and constructing less than is required in others. Furthermore, she says, real homeownership is low in Jamaica because many cannot afford it, despite contributing to the National Housing Trust. The 'Survey of Living Conditions' reports that over 60 per cent of Jamaicans own a house, but also notes that many are in fact squatters on government land.

Physical planner Desmond Hall says what is needed is for developers to move away from exclusionary zoning. "By that, I mean, you don't want a separation of commercial and residential, and so on."

What is needed, he says, is for certain commercial activities to be mixed with residential areas as a way of complementing development. "Land is scarce, it is a finite resource so we really have to look to zoning that is inclusive," he adds.

Revitalising the rental market will also go a long way in reducing overcrowding, the planners argue.

"There is an absence of rental units and those units that are available, persons are unable to afford them," says Archer.

Subsidised housing

Hall agrees. He says the Government should consider finding subsidised housing in the rental market to level the playing field and allow more low- and middle-income groups to afford rent.

"What must happen is that there needs to be some injection of - subsidy - either subject subsidy or object subsidy," says Hall. By that, he means, subsidy that is given directly to the tenant or the landlord.

"When the subsidy is given to the renter, as opposed to the landlord, it works better that way because when you give it to the landlord, then he/she sees a loophole for increasing his/her rent because it (the subsidy) is his/her guarantee," Hall argues.

He says an incentive, however, needs to be given to real estate developers to produce affordable rental housing. This should ameliorate overcrowding, especially in rural areas where the unavailability of jobs forces growing and extended families to remain in a single household.