The Drama of Fault
On hubris and Jacks Hill
Last weekend, I saw online images and video of the damage on to a house on Ridgeway Terrace on Jacks Hill following the heavy rain on Thursday and Friday, November 16th and 17th. On Sunday morning I decided to have a look.
Some background: Jacks Hill is part of the Port Royal Mountains, which overlook the Liguanea Plain on which Kingston sits. Because of its gorgeous views of the higher Blue Mountains to the north, and the city and Kingston Harbour to the south, it’s been a desirable place for upscale residential housing since the 1950s.
Before all the building on its slopes, I thought it looked like the grassy knuckles of a three fingered giant, but I’ve since learned that many of those lumpy ridges are ancient landslides, coming off steep, marginally stable slopes. Weathered, faulted, unstable soils. The Geological Map of Kingston area prepared by the Geological Survey of Jamaica in 1994 states that “…between Papine and Jacks Hill landslips cover an area of some 0.8 km2 (80 hectares), or approximately 16.89 % of the total slope area of 4.75 km2.”
Below is from Landslide Susceptibility Maps for the Kingston Metropolitan Area, 1999:
https://www.oas.org/cdmp/document/kma/udspub5.htm#section1
“Many of these ancient landslide scarps and their deposits are concealed by vegetation and have been extensively modified by both natural processes (including earthquakes – DMcC) and human interventions. These areas may remain stable for a long period of time until natural processes (e.g. intense rainfall) and/or human interference (e.g. construction activity) disturb the slope stability conditions. An excellent example of this is provided by the widespread occurrence of debris and mudflows in the Jacks Hill area that were triggered by the rainfall associated with 1973 tropical storm Gilda, and more recently, the rainfall related to hurricane Mitch during 20th October to 3rd November 1998. A number of retaining walls were also destroyed in this area as a consequence of the failure of backfill.
“On 14th November 1988, an engineered (my emphasis) house in Jacks Hill, Upper St. Andrew, and a section of the Jacks Hill Road including a culvert were destroyed by a landslide following a brief spell of heavy rainfall and earthquake shaking. The road remained closed for more than six months. The house is located on old debris flow and mudflow deposits that were probably initially triggered by the June 1692 Earthquake. In the same area following the precipitation associated with hurricanes Flora, 4-7 October 1963, and Gilda, 16-18 October 1973, widespread debris flows and mudflows occurred on the southern slopes of the Liguanea Ridge causing extensive damage to houses and roads.”
In short, geologists, hazard specialists and urban planners have long warned about the dangers of over building on Jacks Hill. I called Franklin McDonald, retired geologist and former Director of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management and the National Environment and Planning Agency. I asked him what he thought. “It’s not that you can’t build on Jacks Hill,” he said. “There are similar features in other parts of Jamaica. But you must respect the limitations imposed on you by the natural conditions.” Then he said something that had never occurred to me, “Jamaica is beautiful because of the faults. They create boundaries, escarpments, dramatic landscapes. Think of Spur Tree or Lovers Leap.”
I liked that – the beautiful drama of fault.
But no one accepted the limitations imposed by landscape, geology or history – not upwardly mobile aspiring property owners, not the regulators unworthy of the name, and certainly not anyone euphemistically called a ‘developer’. McDonald: “We need greater geological literacy. And we need to pay attention to the environment, which includes the geology. ” Well, yeah.
I spoke to three different homeowners who have lived on Jacks Hill for the past 30 years to get their perspectives. Regarding Tavistock Terrace and environs, they told me the recent damage is a predictable result of a series of misguided building decisions starting as far back as the 1980s when a ‘developer’ cut a road across the face of the hill, which promptly collapsed. No houses were ever built. More recently, starting in roughly 2020, land was denuded, a small farmer was evicted, natural watercourses were diverted and channelized, excavation for multi story developments began, retaining walls were undermined, new roads were cut, until in December 2022, the unstable soil slid onto Tavistock Terrace blocking it and breaking a major waterpipe. Residents were without domestic water for some three weeks. You would think at this point caution would have crept into the minds of the ‘developers’, but no. In June this year, another reckless cut across the hill followed by rain resulted in further blocking of the road. The press was summoned. A stop order was put on the work, mitigation measures were promised, but were not done. And then two days of heavy rain in November 2023 brought the hillside down onto homes below and into the gully that crosses Jacks Hill Road at the base, risking lives and destroying property.
I drove in my VERY SMALL CAR to the top of Millsborough Avene, which forks into Tavistock Terrace and Millsborough Crescent. Millsborough Avenue itself showed the kind of road damage that occurs with every rain, and as I eased my car over piles of dirt, potholes, small trenches carved by water, I started to wonder if this was an ill advised journey. I came to Ridge Way, which luckily had a street sign. It was clear my car could go no farther. I would have been better off on a horse. I didn’t even pull over, not imagining anyone could traverse what appeared to be a river bed with some remnant patches of asphalt. I got out and looked around at a devastated landscape, the epitome of unsustainable luxury housing development. Enormous, expensive homes almost completely filling lots, gated communities on steep slopes, some broken away and crumbling, huge retaining walls, some incomplete, a pipe revealed in the middle of what must once have been a road – maybe a water pipe? Large drainpipes at the side of the road, possibly awaiting installation.
To stand on Tavistock Terrace – again, this is one of the most desirable addresses in Kingston, the homes sell for stratospheric prices – is to confront the utter abandonment of any form of city planning or development control in the capital city, to fully appreciate our reckless disregard for natural hazards, to understand the willful blindness of those whose first and best tool is a bulldozer.
Back home, I vented at some people, WhatsApped a few more, tried to reach government regulators who, predictably, were in what the Gleaner newspaper called ‘radio silence’ in its front page story on November 21st, entitled Hillside Horror. Negligence and inertia had resulted in silt and rocks flowing from the most recent and unmitigated damage on Tavistock Terrace down onto a medical doctor’s residence. And he’ll be on his own with the legal costs of trying to get compensation from either the developer or the state.
Yesterday I convinced my sister to take me in her larger car to the Jacks Hill Road end of Tavistock Terrace. The winding road went through some secondary forest, big trees, shade, natural watercourses. The older single family homes had stone retaining walls – wide at the base, narrower at the top. And there was the view that drew people: Kingston from above, distance lending enchantment, the harbour. The Caribbean Sea.
Tavistock Terrace becomes impassable just past the massive high rise (I’m sure it
can be seen from space) that elicits whispers – it’s very political – and avoidance of the very name. Which is emblazoned on the side of structure, so I’ll take the risk of writing it – Spyglass. The imagery is apt. That development is worthy of another 1500 words, so I’ll leave it there for now.
For me, here is the mindset that has guided what has happened on Jacks Hill.
1. There is an engineering solution for every problem so anybody can build anything anywhere.
2. We don’t have to consult experts, particularly not impractical, ivory tower academics.
3. Traditional knowledge and historical experience have nothing to teach us.
4. Environmental Impact Assessments and Hazard Assessments and Geotechnical Surveys are mere red tape.
5. Private property rights take precedence over all other rights and values and property owners cannot be constrained in what they build.
6. There is a progression to what we term ‘development’ – at first, the land is regarded as unused, idle, bush; and houses are built. Then townhouses. Then bigger houses on steeper slopes. Then apartments. Then high rises. Once the first house is built, it is used to justify all that comes afterwards.
7. We don’t have to consider carrying capacity – we’ll build until there is not a square inch of ground that is uncovered by concrete.
8. We don’t have to consider the adequacy of existing infrastructure – roads, water, sewage, drainage, power, cable – which was designed for much lower building densities.
9. We don’t have to consider the climate crisis which is already causing increased rainfall over shorter periods.
10. Urging and pleading is a desirable substitute for monitoring, enforcement and sanctions.
11. Anybody who raises these issues is anti-development and anti whichever party forms the government.
It’s hard to imagine how what has been allowed in sections of Jacks Hill can be rectified. I suspect that those who are able to will eventually cut their losses and move away. Others will stay, taking the risks of living on old landslides. The correctly sited older houses will lose their value. Some properties will fall into disrepair, roads will get worse and worse, services will become less and less reliable. Public money will be squandered. At some point, there will be a powerful earthquake and the face of Jacks Hill will be resculpted once more.
I bet, though, that until that happens, people will still pay a big money for a house on Jacks Hill… and I bet not a single regulator loses their job over Tavistock Terrace.
Sorry for my own radio silence everyone. I’m currently editing my new novel - more on that soon…
Remind me never to drive up there it sounds perilous.
And the last line is the most important point made: “... I bet not a single regulator loses their job over Tavistock Terrace.”