Partial order restored on St Lucien Road

Some semblance of order was returned to the environs of Vale View Terrace, Diego Martin yesterday when two policemen from West End Station arrived shortly before 9am to regulate the flow of traffic on St Lucien Road and to ensure that Vale View was resurfaced without undue nuisance to commuters and to nearby residents. The only real glitch in the day’s events occurred when a few residents of Sunset Gardens, which is a private road, objected to the parking of huge concrete pump trucks in front of their homes. They told Newsday that when they asked the police to move the trucks, they were told by one of the officers that Sunset Gardens was not a private road because it had no barrier. They were also warned not to take any steps to have the trucks removed, or they would be arrested and charged. Yesterday’s police presence followed instructions on Tuesday from Diego Martin Regional Corporation’s chairman, Bridgette Anisette-George for work at Vale View to come to an immediate halt and for Vale View developer, Gowkaran Mahabir to repave — with police presence — Vale View Terrace, which he had dug up the week before. He was also ordered to clear clogged drains on St Lucien Road and to put in a box drain on Vale View, as per the requirements of his Town and Country Planning Division outline permission. Tuesday’s stop notice was the second issued to Mahabir by the corporation, the first coming in March this year, when the corporation noticed that construction of townhouses was taking place on the hillside “without its knowledge or permission.” According to Anisette George, after the stop notice, Mahabir was instructed to carry out “restoration work” to repair the “substantial scarring” of the hillside. It also demanded that four retention ponds be put in place. On Wednesday, nevertheless, work commenced as usual just before 8am, coming to a halt a few hours later, only because of the insistence of the corporation that there be police presence on site.

Yesterday, the majority of residents expressed relief at the sight of the police officers who sought for the most part, successfully, to prevent the developer’s concrete mixers and trucks from mounting sidewalks, blocking entrances to roads and causing massive traffic jams. However, some expressed alarm that the material being used to resurface the road was concrete and not pitch. They said they hoped the surface would last, that they would suffer no more hardship and that they would be allowed to return to a normal life in their homes. Many still expressed concern, though, at the risk of landslides from the cutting of the hillside, now that the rainy season has begun. Others hoped that with yesterday’s paving, which went into the late afternoon, work on the project would indeed come to an end, in compliance with the corporation’s stop notice. Former UNC Planning Minister John Humphrey approved the development at Vale View on December 6, 2000, after Town and Country refused Mahabir’s first application to develop the lands on upper Vale View in late 2000. Mahabir then obtained a Certificate of Clearance from the EMA, attached to which was a list of conditionalities, after a site visit by an EMA inspector in December 2002. The EMA, though, before giving its certificate, wrote to the Town and Country Planning Division of the Planning Ministry, seeking its guidance. In early 2003, it was informed by Senior Land Use Planner, Rodney Ramlogan, of Town and Country that the department had “no objection to the proposal,” once the developer promised to, among other things, widen the existing access road off St Lucien Road to a minimum of 4.5 metres or 15 feet.

Residents yesterday told Newsday that Vale View Terrace was being widened by workers covering the open drains on either side, which lead onto St Lucien Road. They said they fear such a move will cause great flooding on Vale View and on St Lucien Road this rainy season. According to EMA documents, the planned development site was a former quarry, abandoned 40 to 50 years ago. The new set of townhouses, according to the EMA, were to be placed 30 feet away from Mahabir’s previous townhouse development on Vale View, a set of orange and yellow townhouses built in 2001, which his brother Sookram told neighbours were selling for $800,000 each. The EMA letter also said that Mahabir would contain the physical development to approximately the lower portion of the site, “that part already serviced by the existing cut access, or 50 percent of the site area.” Mahabir was given no permission to cut an access road further up the hill, yet according to residents, the existing access road was extended above and beyond the site of the development, almost over onto the other side of the mountain. Troubles began at Vale View two years ago with the construction of the first set of townhouses when some residents complained that the construction was causing disturbance, nuisance and damage to their property.

A week ago, the surface of Vale View was dug up to have it upgraded, but rain washed away the concrete and brought mud and slush onto St Lucien Road. One couple told Newsday they were forced to flee their marital home of seven years, built on land purchased from Mahabir, despite complaints to the owner and his brother that they could not drive up to their house. Minister of Public Utilities and the Environment, Rennie Dumas said on Wednesday that he had written to the EMA to see whether the developer was satisfying the terms of his EMA certificate, which state, among other things, that nuisance disturbance to neighbours should be minimised, the access road would be widened, and that construction hoarding and fences should be built to minimise disturbance on neighbouring fences with respect to noise, dust and runoff. The EMA told Newsday it had sent a site inspector to Vale View on Wednesday. The environmental agency is expected to submit its report to the Minister on Monday. Yesterday one resident remarked that the country “had come to a sorry state when its citizens had to go to the media for help because they could not get any from the relevant authorities.”