Kingston, Jamaica — In a major development for Jamaica’s built environment and disaster resilience, the Government has announced that the National Building Code — decades in the making — will finally be implemented in the 2025–2026 fiscal year. The announcement comes amid recovery efforts following the devastating passage of Hurricane Melissa, which made landfall as a powerful Category-5 storm and laid bare the island’s vulnerability to extreme weather events.
Minister of Local Government and Community Development underscored the urgency of this long-delayed reform, pointing to the widespread destruction of homes and community infrastructure in communities where structures were built without foundational safety standards or proper land use controls. The new code will require that all buildings meet structural standards capable of withstanding Category-5 hurricanes and will be backed by mandatory compliance checks, enforcement protocols and penalties for unsafe or illegal construction.
