Mixed-Use Development: The Model Jamaica Needs Now

Kingston, Jamaica — 27 June 2024

Mixed-use development, the integration of residential, commercial and public functions within a single development or district, has moved to the centre of global urban planning policy. Studies, including those from the Urban Land Institute, have found that well-designed mixed-use schemes generate substantially more economic output per unit of land than single-use developments. For Jamaica, where urban land is scarce, infrastructure is unevenly distributed and the pressure for housing supply is acute, this model deserves serious and practical attention.

Why Mixed-Use Has Come of Age

The case for mixed-use development is built on a convergence of evidence from cities that have tried it at scale. Single-use zoning, the dominant model for much of the twentieth century, produced suburban sprawl, car dependency and the separation of where people live from where they work and shop. As urban populations have grown, the costs of that model, in terms of infrastructure, commuting time, energy use and social isolation, have become increasingly visible.

Mixed-use approaches create walkable environments, reduce infrastructure duplication, increase density on constrained land and generate more diverse, resilient economic activity within communities. They also enable the same land to serve multiple functions across different times of day, increasing the efficiency of investment in public spaces, transport links and utilities. The Urban Land Institute’s definition of mixed-use development requires three or more significant revenue-producing uses, the fostering of integration and compatibility, and the creation of walkable connections. That framework is as applicable to Kingston as it is to Kansas City.

Kingston’s Urban Core: A Case for Regeneration

Jamaica’s capital has undergone meaningful change over the past two decades. Waterfront Kingston has attracted investment in hospitality, commercial and cultural uses. Certain commercial corridors have been modernised. Yet substantial areas of the urban core remain underutilised, characterised by ageing building stock, unclear land tenure, insufficient public space and a disconnect between the areas where economic activity concentrates and the communities where workers actually live.

The opportunity in these areas is significant. Adaptive reuse of commercial or industrial buildings for residential or mixed-use purposes, a trend gathering momentum in cities from London’s King’s Cross to Portland’s Pearl District, offers a way to add housing supply without consuming new land. Old warehouses, underused office buildings and historic commercial structures can, with appropriate investment and policy support, become the foundations of new residential neighbourhoods that retain character while creating density.

Tourism, Mixed-Use and the Montego Bay Question

Jamaica’s second city and primary tourism hub presents a different version of the mixed-use opportunity. Montego Bay has long operated as a split environment: a tourist economy within the resort strip and an inland city with its own residential and commercial life, but with limited integration between the two. The potential for mixed-use development that bridges this divide, that creates economic opportunity and housing in proximity rather than in separation, is one of the most interesting planning questions the city faces.

Internationally, tourism-led regeneration projects that include residential components, local retail and community spaces have proven more sustainable over time than pure resort developments that treat their surroundings as separate from their guests. For Jamaica, where tourism is the lifeblood of major coastal communities, ensuring that development patterns do not create an enclave economy surrounded by a housing-stressed local population is both a planning priority and an economic one.

Planning Reform as the Prerequisite

The international experience makes clear that mixed-use development does not happen by accident. It requires planning frameworks that permit and actively encourage integrated land use, building codes that accommodate ground-floor commercial with upper-floor residential, and a regulatory process that does not make mixed-use more expensive or more time-consuming to approve than conventional single-use development. In many jurisdictions, existing zoning rules are the primary obstacle.

Jamaica’s planning system has room to evolve in this direction. A planning environment that makes it straightforward to develop a building with ground-floor retail, middle floors of office space and upper floors of residential units, on an appropriate plot in an appropriate location, would unlock a category of development that currently faces unnecessary friction. The incentive for developers to pursue such projects exists. The policy framework to make them viable needs to catch up.

Building Communities, Not Just Buildings

The deeper argument for mixed-use development is not architectural or financial. It is about what kind of communities Jamaica wants to build. A neighbourhood where people can walk to work, to shops, to schools and to green space, where buildings are active at multiple times of day and where different income levels and uses exist in proximity, is a more cohesive and resilient place than one defined by separation and car dependency. It is also, the evidence increasingly suggests, a more economically productive one.

For Jamaica’s developers, planners, investors and policymakers, the mixed-use model is not a niche aspiration. It is a practical response to land scarcity, housing pressure, infrastructure cost and the desire for urban environments that work for the people who live in them. The global evidence is clear. The opportunity is here.

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