KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

For years, res­i­dents liv­ing near the over­grown lands along Beau­car­ro Road, Freeport, watched heavy equip­ment move in and out, trans­form­ers ap­pear on util­i­ty poles and ru­mours cir­cu­late about a hous­ing de­vel­op­ment that nev­er ma­te­ri­alised.

Now, as con­tro­ver­sy grows over the pro­cure­ment process for the pro­posed Beau­car­ro res­i­den­tial de­vel­op­ment, res­i­dents say their biggest con­cerns are far sim­pler: whether the project will cre­ate jobs for young peo­ple and whether it could lead to in­creased crime.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the site yes­ter­day, the lots ad­join­ing the Beau­car­ro Recre­ation Ground were cov­ered in bush. Sec­tions of the road­way were al­so over­grown, while a lone ve­hi­cle sat in­side the prop­er­ty near a post res­i­dents said once held a bar­ri­er.

Many res­i­dents ad­mit­ted they on­ly learned de­tails about the project af­ter re­cent news re­ports about com­plaints filed with the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR).

Vicky Ram­cha­ran, who has lived in the area for 28 years, said res­i­dents were nev­er for­mal­ly in­formed about what was tak­ing place on the prop­er­ty de­spite years of in­ter­mit­tent ac­tiv­i­ty. She re­called work­ers en­ter­ing the site sev­er­al years ago be­fore ac­tiv­i­ty stopped for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od. Last year, work crews re­turned to in­stall trans­form­ers on elec­tric­i­ty poles, but res­i­dents still re­ceived no ex­pla­na­tion.

“We were just watch­ing to see what was go­ing on. Every­one was spec­u­lat­ing and talk­ing among them­selves. We knew it was some kind of hous­ing project that was go­ing to hap­pen,” Ram­cha­ran said.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the need for hous­ing, Ram­cha­ran said res­i­dents were con­cerned about who could even­tu­al­ly move in­to the de­vel­op­ment.

“We have to be so care­ful now be­cause we don’t know what the crime sit­u­a­tion is or what kind of peo­ple will come. In the past, we had a few in­ci­dents in­volv­ing shoot­ings and rob­beries, so we have to be very care­ful about who is com­ing here to stay.”

Ram­cha­ran said res­i­dents al­so watched parts of the un­fin­ished in­fra­struc­ture de­te­ri­o­rate over the years, with thieves steal­ing hy­drants, pipelines and man­hole cov­ers from the site. She added that se­clud­ed sec­tions of the aban­doned de­vel­op­ment had at­tract­ed sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty from mo­torists who fre­quent­ly drove in­to hid­den ar­eas of the prop­er­ty. One res­i­dent de­scribed it as a “ho­tel.”

Asked about con­cerns sur­round­ing Land­mark­TT’s pro­cure­ment process for the project, Ram­cha­ran said her fo­cus re­mained on whether de­serv­ing fam­i­lies would ben­e­fit from the hous­ing pro­gramme.

“I re­al­ly do not know what to say about that. I know there are a lot of peo­ple who re­al­ly need homes. Peo­ple who may get it may not de­serve it.”

She point­ed to squat­ting com­mu­ni­ties in ar­eas such as Car­li Bay and Brick­field, say­ing many strug­gling fam­i­lies were gen­uine­ly in need of hous­ing as­sis­tance.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Christo­pher Greenidge, said he re­mem­bered hear­ing years ago that the lands were be­ing pre­pared un­der the for­mer Land for the Land­less pro­gramme af­ter heavy ma­chin­ery first en­tered the area. Like Ram­cha­ran, Greenidge said res­i­dents were nev­er prop­er­ly briefed on the project de­spite years of vis­i­ble ac­tiv­i­ty at the site.

While he ac­knowl­edged the pro­cure­ment con­cerns now be­ing raised pub­licly, Greenidge said em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for res­i­dents re­mained his pri­ma­ry con­cern.

With many young peo­ple in and around Beau­car­ro strug­gling to find jobs, he said con­struc­tion work linked to the de­vel­op­ment could pro­vide an im­por­tant out­let and po­ten­tial­ly help re­duce crime in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“Any­how you take it, soon­er or lat­er, they have to build. All I am say­ing is that the younger gen­er­a­tion com­ing up wants to work. Right now, for us old­er peo­ple, things are kind of hard, so for the younger gen­er­a­tion, if they can pro­vide jobs, we will ap­pre­ci­ate the lit­tle work and things to keep them on track in­stead of get­ting in­volved in crime and this and that,” Greenidge said.

He re­called work­ers pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly re­turn­ing over the years to main­tain sec­tions of the prop­er­ty, in­clud­ing cut­ting grass and car­ry­ing out elec­tri­cal work.

Greenidge al­so said the theft of hy­drants and man­hole cov­ers oc­curred years ago, even be­fore roads with­in the de­vel­op­ment were paved.

The pro­posed Beau­car­ro de­vel­op­ment re­cent­ly be­came the sub­ject of com­plaints filed with the OPR over Land­mark­TT’s use of se­lec­tive ten­der­ing for the project. Crit­ics have ques­tioned whether the pro­cure­ment process re­stricts com­pe­ti­tion and com­plies with the Pro­cure­ment Act.

How­ev­er, res­i­dents liv­ing clos­est to the site say that while politi­cians and reg­u­la­tors de­bate pro­cure­ment is­sues, they are still wait­ing for an­swers about how the de­vel­op­ment will af­fect the com­mu­ni­ty they have qui­et­ly lived in for decades.