Does Jamaica Have a “Dead Land” Problem?

by Jevon Reid

Does Jamaica have a Dead Land Problem?

A piece of land can be worth millions of dollars… and still be economically dead.
As Jamaica prepares to revalue roughly 900 thousand parcels of land, most people are thinking about higher property taxes.

But I’m thinking about something else… Does Jamaica have a Dead Land Problem, what I’m calling DLP?
Under the Land Valuation Act, valuations are contemplated as near as may be every five years. But Jamaica has gone considerably longer between comprehensive valuations.
And that matters because land doesn’t stand still.

Roads get built. Communities expand. Infrastructure changes. Commercial centres emerge. And land values change with them.
So this revaluation gives government an updated picture of one of Jamaica’s most important assets: our land—whether bare or improved.

But here’s the question I want to add:
Once we know what Jamaica’s land is worth, are we also asking whether that land is being used according to its Highest and Best Use?
Because value and utilization are not the same thing.

You can have valuable land sitting vacant. Land with poor access or infrastructure. Land caught up in ownership issues. Or land severely underutilized relative to what its location could support.
That’s the idea behind DLP.
To be clear, the revaluation doesn’t measure how productive Jamaica’s land is. But it gives us an opportunity to start probing that question.

Because Jamaica can have valuable land and still fail to unlock the economic value sitting on it.
And perhaps that’s the bigger conversation:
Not just what is Jamaica’s land worth, but what is Jamaica’s land worth to Jamaica?

And that’s the Bottom Line.