The Jamaica Co-operative Credit Union League, JCCUL, is exploring options around offloading some 276 acres of land it owns at Cross Pen in Clarendon.
JCCUL, which is the umbrella association for credit unions, has been the registered proprietor of the property for nearly 40 years, Manager of Property Services Lebert Langley told the Financial Gleaner, but now it wants to dispose of the lands and is sussing out the most profitable option.
JCCUL is in the process of recruiting expertise of land surveyors, planners or civil engineers to subdivide the lands for the purpose of residential lots, serviced with the required access, engineering services and utility provisions to facilitate the development of a subdivision plan.
Within that process, it also wants to determine just how much the land is worth today. The bid deadline for interested consultants passed on Tuesday, September 19.
The area where the land sits is zoned for residential use.
“In looking for divestment possibilities, we are embarking on a project feasibility. Based on what we find out from this part of the project, then the board will have to sit and contemplate what will be done,” Langley said.
“Because we are looking at divestment, it may mean that we simply offload the property as is at that point and no longer move on the subdivision … it really depends on what comes out of that study,” he added.
Langley estimates that the detailed analysis to consider all the critical aspects of the project will continue to run for another three to five years.
Formed eight decades ago, in 1942, to provide collective representation and the promotion of credit union services, JCCUL now has 25 credit union firms as members. That’s down from around 43 when the transition to central bank oversight first got under way.
There is currently a credit union located in every parish in Jamaica.
As the umbrella organisation for the movement pre-reform, JCCUL policed the health of the sector as the de facto watchdog, and generally provided support to members when needed through its Stabilisation Fund.
The Stabilisation Society was formed back in 1968, through which members were guaranteed the return of their total investment if the credit union were to become insolvent.
Now that the sector is being regulated by the central bank, JCCUL has restructured to provide services to its members in a consultative capacity. And the operations of the Stabilisation Fund have also been subsumed into that of the membership services department.