- PHOTO BY MONIQUE HEPBURN
A man dismantles the home of a squatter in the Operation Pride community of Retirement, St. James on Monday March 7, 2005. The community was under the microscope due to criminals who were driving fear into the lives of residents.
Adrian Frater, News Editor
WESTERN BUREAU:
SQUATTING REMAINS Montego Bay's biggest security concern and socio-economic challenge.
With more than 80 per cent of the homicides taking place in informal settlements in St. James every year, and with some 30,000 houses in Montego Bay's 19 squatter communities not contributing to the land tax pool, the police and city fathers continue to be jittery.
The absence of basic amenities such as streetlights and roads in the informal communities have made these communities a special challenge for the police in terms of easy access, especially at nights. Also, the absence of specific addresses and sound social structures have made the areas quite attractive to criminals.
"These areas pose a special challenge to the police, especially at nights," said Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Denver Frater, the head of intelligence in Operation Kingfish. "The absence of easy access makes them difficult to police and criminals tend to gravitate towards these areas."
CHALLENGE TO LAW ENFORCEMENT
ACP Frater, who was once stationed in Montego Bay and has had first-hand experiences fighting crime in the city's informal communities, said the challenge to law enforcement is likely to remain, unless proper roads and lights are put in place, and the general standard of living in these areas improved.
According to police statistics, the past four years, which has witnessed an increase in murder figures in St. James every year, over 80 per cent of the homicides have taken place in informal settlements in and around Rose Heights, Green Pond, Canterbury, Mt. Salem, Quarrie, Norwood, Bottom Pen, Flankers, Mt. Salem and Glendevon.
Along with the security concern, is apprehension that the city could be losing in excess of $10 million annually in potential revenue.
Speaking at a Gleaner Editors' Forum, in Montego Bay, in 2003, Dr. Horace Chang, the Member of Parliament for North West St. James, which has 17 of the 19 squatter settlements, said that in addition to not contributing to the land tax pool, these informal communities are also putting a major strain on the city's resources in regards to overcrowded schools, inadequate social services, a growing homeless population and high unemployment.
"There are no services in the informal settlements in Montego Bay, so everybody crowds downtown ... so it must be overcrowded ... It must be dirty," Dr. Chang, stated at the time.
DEVELOPMENT SHOULD COMPLY WITH LAW
Cognisant of the many negatives associated with the informal communities, when businessman Mark Kerr-Jarrett took over as president of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry last year, he listed the regularisation of squatter settlements as one of the priority issues in his 13-prong agenda to join forces with the Greater Montego Bay Redevelopment Company (GMRC) 2014 in bringing order to the city.
"We will be moving immediately to put the GMRC 2014 plan back on track," said Mr. Kerr-Jarrett, in explaining his agenda to tackle squatting.
"We will be moving swiftly to bring all areas of development into full compliance with the law."
Another major negative created by the city's informal development is the devastating impact it is having on implementing proper plans to meet the city's needs. Quoting 2004 figures, Mr. Kerr-Jarrett said while the official statistics list Montego Bay as having a population of 100,000, when the 19 informal communities, which each has approximately 5,000 residents, come into the mix, the true figure is closer to 200,000.
"We're 50 per cent off," said Mr. Kerr-Jarrett, in terms of planning for Montego Bay using the official figures. With this situation, we will always be behind and we will not always meet our development criteria."
PROVIDENCE HEIGHTS SETTLEMENT
But there seems to be hope for controlling the situation -- the settling of the dispute over the Providence Heights settlement being an example.
Businesswoman Angella Whitter, wife of Montego Bay's land baron Joe Whitter, said the decision to sell their Providence Heights property to former squatters in 2001 was not an amicable one as they were literally forced into making that decision.
"The matter is now settled although I can't say that it was amicable," said a seemingly subdued Mrs. Whitter. "We basically had no choice because the people (former squatters) flatly refused to leave the land despite our many attempts to get them to leave."
The conclusion comes five years after that bitter and protracted dispute reached its ugliest on March 11, 1994, when the then squatters staged a day-long demonstration in Montego Bay. During the unrest, Joe Whitter's Fort Street office was burnt to the ground.
When Mr. Whitter finally decided to sell the land to the Providence Heights Land Development Limited, the umbrella group formed by the former squatters, his initial asking price was $140 million. However, following another bout of wrangling with the lawyers representing the group, he settled for a mere $45 million - and walked away.
