Public consultations on Hillside development coming

The government is to begin consultations on a draft hillside manual being developed, to provide guidelines and set standards for the use of hillside lands for housing and other construction.

The document will be presented to stakeholders through four regional workshops to be held at locations across the island beginning this month.

The aim of the manual is to significantly improve the safety of developments as well as provide better land management of hillsides.

The hillside development manual will identify the type of hillsides where development can take place and slope gradients on which development is not permissible.

It will also include methods for slope and erosion protection as well as guidelines for lot sizes.

Director of the Research and Marketing Unit in the Mines and Geology Division, Norman Harris, said the workshops will ensure that stakeholders are given all the information in the manual.

They will also allow feedback and comments for fine tuning the document.

The first workshop will be on September 12 at the Manchester Parish Council in Mandeville.

The others will be on September 19 at the St. Mary Parish Council in Port Maria, September 25, at the Montego Bay Civic Centre, and on October 3 at the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management in Kingston.

The targeted stakeholders are engineers, architects, planners, land surveyors and developers and stakeholders involved in the development approvals process, regulators and advisory agencies.

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