Infrastructure first, high rise after

Architect, Brian Lewis feels that high-rise buildings are the way to go in the city of Port-of-Spain but warns that they need to be carefully thought, put and planned. “It is quite natural to want to go up, but then you have to have the infrastructure in place in the city,” said Lewis in an interview with Business Day. “You can’t keep adding density to the city without looking at parking and traffic.” The Trinidad and Tobago Institute of Architects (TTIA) last week suggested that with Port-of-Spain bursting at the seams, the time had come to look at a new town, “going east into the Beetham area, down to the Barataria round-a-bout.”

“The new town would have all high-rise mixed-use buildings,” said   TTIA in a document. Architect Jo-Ann Murell described the plan to go east into the Beetham as feasible, which, she added, could mean incorporating Beetham residents into the new city or relocating them. Although Lewis  sees nothing wrong with high-rise architecture, he also feels that going up is not the only way to go. “I think that to some extent, it is an artificial approach to architecture, but if one wants to maximise the value of the land, clearly, the higher density is very attractive for the owner. “At the present time, we have two or three twenty multi-storey towers, but I think there are at least two or three more being planned,” he added.

Referring   to the recent downtown fire, Lewis said, “We could now see the real cost of not doing things properly.” “I hope this time around, we get it right.  My only concern is that in the rush to solve the problem, I hope that we don’t sacrifice the quality that is necessary to do a proper building that will be safe for its occupants. Turning to the question of parking lots in multi-storey buildings, Lewis said: “They need to be planned properly, you cannot put a lot of multi-storey parking lots in the middle of Port-of-Spain, because you have to get there, and you are actually generating more traffic within the city. So you have to position parking very carefully, so that it doesn’t cause more traffic.”

Lewis said  parking lots should be on the periphery, not in the centre of the city. “We need to pay more attention to moving around within the city. There should be more transit systems that are available to the people. So that if they park on the periphery, they can move around still within the city.” On Laventille, Lewis said he knew the area was being looked at. “I think we cannot ignore this part of Port-of-Spain any longer.  It needs to be addressed.  It’s a very sensitive area and must be handled very carefully,” stressing that Laventille residents must be very much part of the solution.