TOWN Clerk Royston King has lamented that the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) has failed to set up a National Capital Planning Commission, recommended by President David Granger more than two years ago.

“Two years later and we still have no planning commission,” King said recently when speaking on the issue of squatting in the City. The Commission is expected to address squatting, which King said is a “very serious” problem at the moment for the City Council.
In squatting areas, King said, faeces allow for aquatic, aggressive growth in canals which restricts free flow of water in them.

“We cannot even clean some canals because our machines cannot get through. And we can’t ask squatters to put up septic tanks and houses because both are wrong,” he observed.

Mayor Patricia Chase-Green noted that even in such squatting communities, the public health inspectors attached to the City Council will have to visit. Councillor Heston Bostwick believes that the City Engineers Department should have been more vigilant on the issue of squatting at the West Ruimveldt Front Road in Georgetown.

He said he was aware that over 75 persons were given house lots and have removed from the location, but because the structures were allowed to remain, they have become reoccupied. “These houses should be demolished after people moved,” he posited.

During his visit to the City Council in 2016, President Granger had proposed the establishment of the ‘Planning Commission,’ which would see a structured approach being utilised for the development of Georgetown. The objective of the commission would be to create policies that would chart urban renewal in the city.

The President had said that the body could review past and future plans for the capital as well as outline issues that would be addressed. “The city must be sanitary, it must be clean. We all aim at a clean city, a green city, a serene city, a safe city,” he said.
Any urban plan created, however, must be in keeping with what is required by the City and must be in collaboration with Central Government, the Central Housing and Planning Authority, the Ministry of Communities and organisations they would be working with to develop Georgetown, Granger had said.

He urged that keen interest be placed on the location of entertainment hubs and business complexes, which ought not to intrude into areas designated as residential zones. “Locations should be identified for the construction and development of aesthetically picturesque roadways and malls, arcades for vendors.”

Apart from squatting, the plan will include solutions for addressing other challenges which face the city including problems of drainage, unlawful activities and crime, ignorance of zoning laws, improper vending and noise nuisance and garbage disposal.