4,500 Housing Solutions Pipeline for Westmoreland as Negril Tourism Worker Scheme Targets 1,200 Units

Savanna-la-Mar, Jamaica — 1 November 2024

Westmoreland is positioned to receive approximately 4,500 new housing solutions as a cluster of public and private sector developments advances across the parish, according to an assessment of projects announced and under construction. The pipeline includes the Paradise development with 2,453 solutions projected to commence in 2024, the Orlands development with 520 units, and a 1,040-unit Negril Spot development with a 2025 projected start date — the last of which is specifically designed to address the severe housing shortage for workers in Negril’s tourism economy. Smaller schemes at Savannah Park (41 units) and Shrewsbury phases one and two (32 and 27 solutions respectively) round out a portfolio that represents the most significant housing investment Westmoreland has received in its modern history.

Westmoreland has long been characterised by the contrast between its global tourism brand — Negril’s Seven Mile Beach is among the Caribbean’s most recognised resort destinations — and the inadequate housing conditions of the workers who make that tourism economy function. The parish’s formal housing stock has not kept pace with the employment and population growth generated by three decades of north-western Jamaica tourism development. Families employed in Negril’s hotels, restaurants, water sports operations, and ancillary businesses often commute from inadequate housing in inland communities, or live in the informal settlements that have grown on the periphery of the resort zone.

The Negril Tourism Worker Housing Problem

A 1,200-unit Negril housing scheme specifically designed for tourism workers has been planned for the area, addressing a structural gap in Jamaica’s housing policy that has been visible for years: the workers who service Jamaica’s most internationally successful resort corridor do not have adequate formal housing within that corridor. The tourism worker housing problem is not unique to Negril — it is visible in Ocho Rios, Falmouth, and Montego Bay as well — but Negril’s geographic isolation at Jamaica’s western tip makes the commuting-from-distant-communities solution particularly difficult. Workers living an hour from Negril face transport costs and early morning commuting demands that are incompatible with the shift schedules of hospitality employment.

The 1,040-unit Negril Spot development, with its 2025 projected start date, is the NHT’s primary vehicle for addressing this gap in Westmoreland. Whether that start date is achieved will depend on the same programme management variables that affect all NHT scheme delivery — land preparation, contractor procurement, utility connection, and planning approvals — but the scheme’s existence in the NHT pipeline is a meaningful commitment to Negril’s workforce.

West Wing and Private Sector Participation

Private sector developers are also active in Westmoreland. The West Wing, a residential development in Whitehouse at the parish’s southern coast valued at approximately J$1.5 billion, began construction in December 2023 with houses expected to go on sale in February 2025 and all four blocks targeted for completion by June 2026. Mowatt’s Concrete has filed applications for a 51-plus unit development at Lambridge in Farm Pen, Westmoreland, adding further to the private supply pipeline. The combination of NHT-led public schemes and private sector development is creating a more robust housing supply pipeline for the parish than has historically existed.

“Westmoreland’s housing deficit has been allowed to build for decades while the tourism industry grew,” said Dean Jones, Managing Director of Jamaica Homes. “The 4,500-unit pipeline is significant, but Westmoreland needs every one of those solutions and more. The Negril tourism worker scheme is the most critical piece — if Jamaica cannot house the people who run its most successful resort, it is building a structural instability into its tourism economy. Workers who cannot afford decent housing close to their jobs will eventually seek opportunities elsewhere, and the hospitality industry will feel the consequences.”

Sheffield Palms and the Ground-Breaking Milestone

The Prime Minister’s August 2023 attendance at the Sheffield Palms ground-breaking in Retreat, Westmoreland — where the 4,500-solution pipeline was announced — placed Westmoreland’s housing need in the national spotlight. Sheffield Palms had been one of the NHT schemes featured in the prior session’s housing news briefs, and its ground-breaking marked an important moment of political commitment to a parish that has historically been underserved by national housing investment relative to the size of its economy and the scale of its workforce.