Galina Housing Development to Deliver 360 Solutions in St. Mary in $1.99-Billion NHT-China Partnership

St. Mary, Jamaica — 24 April 2026

The Prime Minister broke ground for the $1.99-billion Galina Housing Development in St. Mary on April 24, 2026 — a 360-solution scheme spread across 72 acres near Port Maria and Oracabessa, delivered through a partnership between the National Housing Trust and Henan Fifth Construction Group Jamaica Limited. The scheme comprises one-bedroom and two-bedroom detached units alongside serviced lots, offering a mix of price points and typologies suited to St. Mary’s relatively rural residential market. It is one of the most significant housing investments in the parish’s history.

St. Mary occupies the north coast between Portland to the east and St. Ann to the west, with Port Maria as its capital and Oracabessa — adjacent to the Galina development site — as one of its most historically interesting towns. Oracabessa is known to Jamaicans and internationally as the location of GoldenEye, the former home of Ian Fleming where the James Bond novels were written, and as the site of GoldenEye Resort, a high-end hospitality property that has anchored a premium real estate market in its immediate vicinity. The Galina development sits in this north coast corridor — close enough to enjoy the locational amenity of the Oracabessa coast while targeting an NHT contributor income profile rather than the luxury segment.

The China-NHT Construction Partnership

The Henan Fifth Construction Group partnership reflects the NHT’s established strategy of engaging Chinese construction contractors to supplement domestic construction capacity. Chinese construction firms have been active participants in Jamaica’s housing delivery infrastructure for several years, providing both construction management capability and access to Chinese-manufactured building materials and prefabricated housing components. The arrangement allows Jamaica to access construction capacity at a price and volume that the domestic contracting market — which is supply-constrained in both firms and skilled tradespeople — cannot always match.

For the 72-acre Galina site, the partnership brings a capable contractor to a parish with limited large-scale construction experience. St. Mary has not historically been a major NHT construction location — the parish’s relatively small population and lower urbanisation rate have meant that previous NHT programmes have prioritised higher-volume parishes like St. James, St. Catherine, and Kingston. The 360-solution Galina scheme represents a meaningful commitment to NHT housing delivery in a parish that has previously received less attention.

Annotto Bay Redevelopment and St. Mary’s Urban Future

The Galina development complements the comprehensive Annotto Bay redevelopment plan outlined by the Prime Minister in May 2025. The Annotto Bay plan — a coastal town on the border of St. Mary and Portland — includes a new main road to relieve traffic congestion and identification of additional lands for the town to expand. Annotto Bay is a strategic node on the Kingston-to-Port Antonio transport corridor, and its redevelopment as a more modern, climate-resilient urban centre would extend the zone of organised settlement along St. Mary’s coastline.

Taken together, the Galina housing development and the Annotto Bay redevelopment plan represent a more ambitious vision for St. Mary’s built environment than the parish has historically attracted. The north coast of St. Mary — between Oracabessa and Annotto Bay — sits within reasonable commuting distance of Ocho Rios in St. Ann and is served by the north coast highway. As that highway connection matures and the parish develops its residential infrastructure, St. Mary’s position in Jamaica’s housing market is likely to increase.

“The Galina development is St. Mary getting its fair share,” said Dean Jones, Managing Director of Jamaica Homes. “For too long, national housing investment has been concentrated in the big population centres — Kingston, Portmore, Montego Bay. St. Mary is a beautiful parish with real residential potential. The NHT investment in Galina, combined with the Annotto Bay plan, signals that the government is thinking about housing for the whole island, not just the urban corridors. That is exactly the right approach.”

Detached Units and the Rural Housing Model

The Galina development’s composition — detached one-bedroom and two-bedroom units rather than apartments or townhouses — is calibrated to St. Mary’s character and the preferences of its residents. Rural and semi-rural Jamaicans typically prefer standalone units with their own yard space to multi-family apartment developments, reflecting both cultural preference and practical utility: yard space supports food gardening, outdoor living, and the informal economic activities that supplement household income in rural communities. The serviced lots component of the scheme extends this further, allowing families to self-build on prepared sites according to their own specifications and timeline.

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