SSB seeks bids for landslide mitigation at Joe’s Hill Manor
The Social Security Board (SSB) has invited locally based contractors to bid on a project to reduce landslide risks at the Joe’s Hill Manor Estate on Tortola.
The request is the latest effort by the SSB to address slope-stability concerns at the hillside housing development. According to a tender advertisement issued by Joe’s Hill Manor Limited, it is seeking “the services of a suitable and locally based contractor for the supply and installation of high-quality geotechnical mesh to stabilise hillside slopes and reduce the risk of landslides at Joe’s Hill Manor Estate.”
The scope of work includes conducting a detailed site assessment to evaluate slope conditions and soil stability before installing UV-resistant, high-tensile geotechnical mesh designed for Caribbean hillside conditions. The contractor will also be required to remove loose debris where necessary, anchor and tension the mesh system, maintain natural drainage channels, carry out inspections and testing, and provide maintenance documentation upon completion.
Tenderers must demonstrate relevant experience over the past decade, submit financial statements, hold a valid BVI trade licence and certificate of good standing, and provide a work programme, health and safety methodology, staffing plan and estimated construction timeline.
A site visit was scheduled for July 7 at the estate, while completed bids must be submitted to the SSB by August 17. The advertisement states that Joe’s Hill Manor Limited “is not obligated to accept the lowest or any bid and will not be held accountable for any costs incurred by the tenderer.”
This request for proposals comes after previous concerns about slope stability at the development. In May 2024, heavy rainfall that affected large sections of Tortola caused a retaining wall at Joe’s Hill Manor to collapse. No injuries were reported, although the wall fell close to one of the apartment buildings.
Joe’s Hill Manor was conceived as the SSB’s flagship First-time Homeowners Programme. Ground was originally broken in 2017 for what was then planned as a 53-unit development costing approximately $14 million, but the project was delayed after Hurricanes Irma and Maria before construction resumed in 2020. By the time the estate was completed in 2022, the development cost had risen to approximately $26.7 million and ultimately comprised 52 residential units across 25 buildings.
The development later faced challenges in attracting buyers. Although nearly 600 people initially expressed interest, the SSB disclosed in 2023 that only four purchasers had proceeded with buying homes, with affordability cited as a major obstacle. At the time, officials said the estate consisted of a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom condominiums, townhouses and single-family homes intended primarily for qualifying first-time homeowners.
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Your forefathers knew more about land stability than what the geotechnical experts know now.
In the first place, they avoided destabilising land that previously had been stable. They didn’t have bulldozers and backhoes to screw up what nature had perfected over the millenniums: nature doesn’t like being messed about with.
Secondly, they didn’t have UV-resistant, high-tensile geotechnical mesh, but they did know how to achieve soil retention by planting. Elsewhere in the Caribbean bamboo was introduced for this purpose.
So years later y’all realized that the fill the majority of h th use hillside foundations on was unstable? Lmbao!
Pi$s poor planning if you ask me! Always ‘after the fact’ planning and implementation around these here parts. Well sah!
Where’s all the water from those cistern overflows connects to or they were designed/built to run off the ground outside rach unit further undermining their foundations?
The groups that designed and built is wrong in the first place should be paying for this through insurance, or out of their own pockets. Not for our SS to be paying more people to fix what should have been done right in the first place!
well i feel sorry for whoever bought homes up there cuz once sbb get all them thing sell off you on your own lol with them expenses
a good piece of weather ain hit them yet but yah going see.
what a waste
insurance gonna increase on them thing
them couldnt find flat land no where?
why them ain do the same for other islands?
hush yu RA$$. Because your broke A$$ aint got no money to buy one you talking piss. Have you ever been up that hill?. If you take a drive up the hill you will shut your bombo cl@#$. then again its gated so people with low minds like you could never be allowed in. Stop talking what you don’t know.
Like you wasted your investment in them homes.
You have my condolences big dawg
Don’t forget to rub Natalio feet when yah done lube up
Good luck xoxo
idk dawg. i dont think the end assumption should be broke cuz them homes there catered to people who can’t afford regular market price homes/land
so in reality them is the ones who broke and got to cheap out on these…. thats how i see it
but broke or not.
if someone who got a lil change but more cautious with them money that dont make them broke
compared to someone who got money but spends recklessly with no foresight.
even a child could of see them homes built on unstable land…
so dont take out your anger on us for yall lacking foresight and not being cautious with money bro.
good luck to yall up there fr
as usally tax payers gotta suffer for government lacking foresight and spending recklessly like those home owners sigh.
we lack vision
This landslide problem was predictable and perhaps preventable. Runoff flows from a high elevation to a lower elevation. Nature slope the land to naturally flow into, collect, convey by a Ghut in the Long Bush area, which discharges into the sea. Consequently, an in- situ evaluation should have been part of the planning, design, construction and development process. And a mitigation plan should have been put in place to prevent/minimize landslides, prevent/minimize flooding, collect and divert runoff around property(s).
@E.Leonard, in-situ, mitigation , etc, you dividing deep into civil engineering. Hopefully, our engineers took all these factors into consideration. Nature fashioning the landscape to collect runoff and convey it safely out to sea, retention ponds, etc. is another deep dive. The BVI is not the only hilly locales. Can they benchmark other locales, eg, Switzerland, etc.? It does not have to reinvent wheel.
Lennard, ah yu r@ss go away and only come back to visit.
$26.7 Million and a proper retaining wall to mitigate landslide risk wasn’t included? THIS IS A SET OF NONSENSE!!!!
Shame our Gov conned the SSB into getting involved in this.
We can only hope the airport con does not get to them.