Against the background that the Government expects to construct 70,000 inexpensive housing solutions over the next five years, Prime Minister Andrew Holness today (August 26) issued a warning to anyone considering squatting that his administration has no intention of tolerating the establishment of future illegal settlements around the island.

Speaking earlier today (August 26) during a handover ceremony at the Catherine Estate in St Catherine, Holness said: “The Greater Bernard Lodge development is currently being developed and when completed will have over 10,000 houses. It is right beside other communities that pre-existed but were never planned, they were irregularly settled, people just move on to the land, staked it out and say ‘this is mine’.”

The prime minister added: “I appreciate and I understand the need for housing and why people will do that because the housing market was not moving fast enough to provide you with the options to formally own and purchase your home.”

He noted that, as a result, the Government has sought to restructure the National Housing Trust (NHT) and the Housing Agency of Jamaica (HAJ) to make the organisations more efficient and more robust in the delivery of service so they can provide the houses faster for the growing market.

“Can you imagine if 70,000 houses are place on the market in these price range? Then people would say, ‘Instead me going to go capture land and get in a conflict with people ,I just wait until the house come on the market and I buy it’.”

Continuing, Holness said: “However, there are some persons who it doesn’t matter how much house you put out, they believing in going and taking over private land or public land and say it’s theirs and there are some who are audacious to say that they own the land; have no title for the land, but they are selling the land.”

He added: “They came to me saying they want road, they want the Government to put water there. Government never even know about it and they want title after spending all this money building on the land.”

Said the prime minister: “It’s a real challenge, so not too far from here is a community where this is happening and when we did the satellite survey we see some massive structures going up 50 times the size of what is here. None of those people have title for the land.

“I am being very clear when I say we will not allow you to capture and take the public’s property. Some of them are being encouraged by gangs because the gang problem is so insidious that they want to take over and control communities and some of these are being financed by illicit gain from criminal activities.”

“I want to be very clear that we will not allow you to capture, squat or illegally take over public land. It will not happen and we will not allow it in any way, shape or form to deprive the people of the country from structured developments.”

He pointed out that the lands being captured are lands that the NHT and the HAJ are going to need to build housing like these in a structured manner where the basic amenities such as water, sewer, light, and road will be made available.