Kali­fa Clyne

Al­low ven­dors to re­main at the Sal­va­tori site on a month-by-month ba­sis af­ter the Car­ni­val sea­son. That was Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing's ap­peal to Hous­ing Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal as the min­is­ter hand­ed over the site yes­ter­day to ven­dors for the Christ­mas through Car­ni­val sea­sons.

He added: "I am ap­peal­ing to the min­is­ter that, un­til such time that the fa­cil­i­ty needs to be turned over for con­struc­tion, he en­ters in­to an in­di­vid­ual con­tract with each ven­dor to utilise the site un­til a month be­fore it is need­ed. "If we have con­tracts with them, I do not see that any­body will have a prob­lem in be­ing up­root­ed at that point,"said Lee Sing.

He said such an agree­ment would al­low for much more ease on the city's foot­paths un­til the State sup­ports the pedes­tri­an mall that has been planned for low­er Hen­ry and Char­lotte streets. The city has a pro­pos­al to turn low­er Hen­ry and Char­lotte Streets in­to a vend­ing mall which will cater for about 200 booths.

"I be­lieve that rather than putting back the fence at the end of the Car­ni­val sea­son, we can con­tin­ue to utilise the fa­cil­i­ty on a month-to-month arrange­ment, so that no­body be­lieves he or she is the own­er of any piece of prop­er­ty in the city but that they are be­ing giv­en a chance to vend on the par­tic­u­lar site."

Last year for vend­ing at Sal­va­tori site

Lee Sing said there would be park­ing at the Sal­va­tori site dur­ing the sea­son. He added: "We an­tic­i­pate that we will have room for about 60 ve­hi­cles for short-term park­ing. "The first hour will prob­a­bly be $10, the sec­ond $20 and it will rise so there will be a dis­in­cen­tive to long-term park­ing."

The city will man­age the fa­cil­i­ty, he said. Lee Sing an­tic­i­pat­ed about 60 ven­dors would oc­cu­py the space pro­vid­ed at the Sal­va­tori site. Mooni­lal said the agree­ment with the ven­dors would last un­til Ash Wednes­day but added he would sit with the may­or and dis­cuss his pro­pos­al for any type of con­tin­u­ing in­volve­ment with the site. Gov­ern­ment is con­sid­er­ing con­struct­ing an­oth­er tow­er to host busi­ness­es of the lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al pri­vate sec­tor at the Sal­va­tori site.

"We are look­ing at that type of con­struc­tion in the new year. It de­pends on costs and oth­er fac­tors. "We have en­tered in­to some dis­cus­sion on it but we are yet to fi­nalise any type of agree­ments," Mooni­lal said.