Successive governments have paid lip service to meeting Jamaica’s housing needs. The Planning Institute of Jamaica statistics show that only in the 1970s and 1990s did Jamaica come close to meeting the demand.Bureaucracy, weak enforcement, and low housing output are keeping Jamaica’s housing stock fragile. Jamaica’s housing production system is too slow, too informal, and too fragile for the climate realities now confronting the country. If Jamaica is serious about building-back-better, three reforms are necessary—cutting approval delays, enforcing stronger building standards, and scaling up resilient affordable starter housing from roughly 3,000 units annually to at least 21,000. These themes emerged clearly from the recent Jamaica Institution of Engineers Development Forum and now demand policy action under the NaRRA Act.DELAYS Bureaucracy is a developmental risk. Environmental infrastructure supporting the health sector can be delayed by four to five years from multi-ministerial deliberation and regulatory agency sign-off. Even well-intended housing developments can easily take two years to secure approval from more than twelve agencies. Speaking at the forum, Health Minister Christopher Tufton highlighted one of Jamaica’s most persistent institutional failures: chronic delays to development. Using the health sector as an example, he pointed to the Spanish Town Hospital expansion, where implementation was delayed by several years despite the obvious pressing public need. If a major hospital can be delayed for years, what hope exists for resilient housing at the scale Jamaica now urgently requires?Jamaica needs a more streamlined structure for both post-disaster reconstruction and land development. Build-back-better and land development cannot mean endless committees, multiple reviews, and agencies operating without urgency. Yes, housing solutions, roads, and coastal protection must be resilient and accountable. But delay also carries economic and social costs, from escalating damages in a more severe hurricane climate. The core message remains: Jamaica cannot build resilience through a slow regulatory system. WEAK ENFORCEMENT Jamaica has a Building Code enforcement problem. The country has spent decades modernizing its building standards, after successive disasters exposed weaknesses in construction. The Bureau of Standards does important work developing standards, evaluating materials, and supporting safer construction. Codes do not protect people unless they are consistently enforced in the most vulnerable communities, and not only in formal commercial developments.That enforcement responsibility lies with the Municipal Corporations, and the reality is that many are under-resourced, understaffed, and overwhelmed with multiple duties. Some municipal corporations operate with only a handful of building officers, and some parishes only have one. Money and human resources are constrained, but private-sector building professionals can help municipal corporations strengthen enforcement. Jamaican engineers already know how to design safer buildings that are hurricane-, earthquake- and flood-resistant. The key issue is institutional enforcement in a low-capacity environment.The policy response should focus on strengthening inspections and local enforcement capacity.EXPANDABLE STARTER HOMES There is a massive need for public education, roof retrofitting and replacement housing. Jamaica’s housing stock of about 930,000 is now a climate resilience and socio-economic issue. The frequency of severe Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost tripled in recent decades in comparison to the 1960s and 1970s. Formal masonry housing, particularly homes with reinforced slab roofs or properly engineered roof systems, performed up to 16 times better than the informal housing stock. This is based on on-the-ground observations in the Melissa damage zone. Yes, some will argue that slab houses are hotter to live in and have increased earthquake risks. This is not accurate for well-designed homes. There were examples of well-engineered timber concrete housing schemes with no damage. These systems should be used as reconstruction prototypes rather than reinventing the wheel with imported and untested solutions that are prone to rust in Caribbean conditions.Affordable housing construction has lagged badly. Annual production of roughly 3,000 homes in the last ten years is grossly inadequate given the estimated annual housing need of approximately 21,000 units. We must build our way out of vulnerability.Some will argue that the ROOFS programme is the way forward. This programme offered cash worth less than the cost of replacing half a room roof without supervision. About 17,000 needy households were assessed. But ROOFS is both technically and economically flawed. The Ministry of Labour and Social Security’s ROOFS programme only scratches the surface of the roughly 221,000 fragile roofs nationally. Without the kind of technical supervision used in The Bahamas and Dominica, it is very unlikely that replaced roofs will be resilient or achieve value for money. Investing in rebuilding without understandable guidelines is economically unsound. The answer is not luxury housing at scale or tinkering with a few starter homes. The country needs affordable starter homes at scale that can be expanded across a housing lot or vertically over time as household incomes improve. Building 30,000 resilient starter homes should therefore become a national resilience strategy under NaRRA. Jamaica needs public education, supervised roof retrofitting and a rapid expansion of affordable, resilient formal housing.INFORMALITY BREEDS FRAGILITY Most people simply want a place to live. Structural resistance is rarely a priority concern for informal households. That reality must shape public policy, rather than relying solely on cash-assistance.The answer is to make Building Code compliance more practical and achievable. Simplified illustrated code guidelines and technical support for retrofitting and rebuilding can go a long way. When accompanied by occupancy certification tied to minimum Building Code safety standards, this would move the country in the right direction.The existing municipal corporation system fails because it is hamstrung by inadequate human resources and a vast low-capacity informal construction sector. Third-party certification by engineers and architects can provide the most practical route to improving compliance. Building back better requires faster approvals, practical guidance for vulnerable households, stronger enforcement, and affordable housing production at scale.Dr. Christopher Burgess is a registered civil engineer, vice president of engineering for the Jamaica Institution of Engineers, climate scientist, land developer, and managing director of CEAC Solutions. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com