Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

San Fer­nan­do May­or Kaz­im Ho­sein has promised cit­i­zens a new mul­ti-lev­el car park as part of the San Fer­nan­do Wa­ter­front Re­de­vel­op­ment Project.Ho­sein made the state­ment at a clean-up and beau­ti­fi­ca­tion ex­er­cise at King's Wharf, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day.The clean-up ef­fort came fol­low­ing the de­mo­li­tion of DR Singh's sawmill ear­li­er this month. The sawmill, which had oc­cu­pied the land for over 60 years, was de­scribed by the may­or as an eye­sore and a health haz­ard to the pub­lic.

"This was nev­er an ap­pro­pri­ate site for the sawmill, as its op­er­a­tions could have put the lives of cit­i­zens in dan­ger," Ho­sein said."We are propos­ing to build a mul­ti-lev­el car park here for the peo­ple who come to the hos­pi­tal, or those who use the wa­ter taxi and have to park their cars on the side of the road."Stress­ing the need for pub­lic car parks in San Fer­nan­do, Ho­sein said he had al­so tak­en steps to al­le­vi­ate pub­lic frus­tra­tion by telling the wreck­ers to "go easy" on peo­ple when they park on the streets.

"There is no park­ing in the city, there is no park­ing at the hos­pi­tal. I have there­fore called on the wreck­ers to be very le­nient on peo­ple on how they park their cars in San Fer­nan­do."Ex­press­ing his dis­ap­point­ment at the lack of con­sul­ta­tion by the Min­istry of Plan­ning and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment over the wa­ter­front project, Ho­sein said the coun­cil felt left out. "Every­one has their eye on this project, but we in the coun­cil feel we should have more in­put. It's as we al­ways say, 'Don't sit in Port-of-Spain and make de­ci­sions for San Fer­nan­do.'"

When asked about the two oth­er struc­tures oc­cu­py­ing the land, Ho­sein said the le­gal process re­quired to re­move the two squat­ters had al­ready be­gun. He ex­plained that one squat­ter had been there for the past 40 years and the oth­er for 50 years."We need to go through the le­gal process to have these per­sons re­moved in a hu­mane man­ner."He al­so an­nounced the cor­po­ra­tion was set to be­gin de­mol­ish­ing old and di­lap­i­dat­ed build­ings in San Fer­nan­do to­day.

The first de­mo­li­tion will take place on Court Street at 10 am. Ho­sein praised the own­er of the build­ing for com­ing for­ward to co-op­er­ate with the coun­cil's clean-up ef­forts."These di­lap­i­dat­ed build­ings are life-threat­en­ing, and of­ten these build­ings are homes to drug deal­ers and home­less peo­ple," he said.Ho­sein said the coun­cil was re­new­ing its calls to own­ers of di­lap­i­dat­ed build­ings to come for­ward and claim re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their prop­er­ty, or face le­gal ac­tion

"There are many prop­er­ty own­ers who are re­fus­ing to co-op­er­ate. We will not be de­terred from clean­ing up our city. Those peo­ple will face le­gal ac­tion," he said.