Properties Jamaica | Jamaica Real Estate Portal

Six years after the National Housing Trust (NHT) developed and sold houses and serviced lots at Phase II in the Longville Park Scheme in Clarendon, residents of that parish are eagerly anticipating the development of Phase III. Work on this phase is to end in May 2011.

When complete, Longville Phase 3 will provide an additional 834 housing solutions for NHT contributors living and working in Clarendon. The solutions will consist of 100 studios, 180 one-bedroom, 320 two-bedroom and 234 service lots.

“We conducted exhaustive surveys. We listened to the voices of the people who already live in the community as well as to those who wish to live there, and decided on a mix of studio, one and two bedroom houses and service lots,” said Michael Taylor, Assistant General Manager, Project Management. Phases 1 and 2 at Longville provided a mix of studios and service lots only.

“It’s amazing what people have done with the solutions they got six or seven years ago,” said NHT’s Clarendon Branch Manager, Judith Thompson. “In the very early stages, sales were slow but once people learned of plans for the highway and when they saw what others were doing in the area, the enormous potential of the community dawned on everyone. As soon as we finished selling, persons began asking about Phase 3.”

Even as some cast their sights on Longville, others in the parish are considering the options at Bushy Park, a development located off the May Pen to Chapelton main road. The NHT plans to develop 67 studio, one and two-bedroom units in this area. “Construction will start this month and by 2010 we should be winding down and getting ready to sell,” Michael Taylor says. Bushy Park will be close enough to May Pen to benefit from all the commercial and social amenities of that town. The scheme will have its own recreational space.

The two Clarendon developments are part of a larger three-year housing trust which will see 12,000 solutions being started by the NHT by 2012. Other parishes in which the NHT will be starting housing construction before year-end are Manchester, St. Catherine, St. Thomas, Westmoreland, Trelawny and St. James.

n.