Malis­sa Lara

A hous­ing de­vel­op­ment project in La Hor­quet­ta is be­ing threat­ened by flood wa­ters and squat­ters. The project, known as the Green­vale Park Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment, is lo­cat­ed off Tumpuna Road. Com­pris­ing 655 units–in­clud­ing town­hous­es and sin­gle units–the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) project start­ed in 2007 and is sched­uled for com­ple­tion in De­cem­ber. Res­i­dents, how­ev­er, have doubts about HDC's abil­i­ty to have the hous­es ready by then. Though un­oc­cu­pied, the area is known to flood when there is a heavy down­pour. On a vis­it to the de­vel­op­ment, the Sun­day Guardian ob­served three-foot high wa­ter­marks on the walls of the one-storey units. To com­pound mat­ters, some res­i­dents of neigh­bour­ing La Hor­quet­ta al­leged that some­times the wa­ter reach­es win­dow lev­el.

Win­ston Spring, 66, who has lived near the de­vel­op­ment for more than 40 years, said he told a pre­vi­ous project man­ag­er that the area was prone to flood­ing. Told that there were de­ten­tion ponds to curb flood­ing, he said they would not help. He said there was nor­mal­ly wa­ter three feet high when there is a down­pour, so he has built a two-storey house. Di­vi­sion­al Man­ag­er, Project Man­age­ment, Al­lan Cun­ning­ham, who toured the de­vel­op­ment with the Sun­day Guardian and ac­knowl­edged the area is prone to flood­ing, said, "Once we put in en­gi­neer­ing so­lu­tions it should be fine." He said he was not at the HDC for the ini­tial in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the de­vel­op­ment, but in­sist­ed hous­es are built where there is a de­mand and a need.

Cun­ning­ham said, "When you're build­ing a de­vel­op­ment you first find out what the nat­ur­al oc­cur­rences are and you take them in­to ac­count." He said they had built em­bank­ments. An­oth­er em­bank­ment will be built to pre­vent flood­wa­ters from rav­aging the de­vel­op­ment. "We have con­struct­ed em­bank­ments–1.7 me­tres high and 10 me­tres wide–around de­ten­tion ponds as tem­po­rary mea­sures to pro­tect the hous­ing de­vel­op­ment from flood­ing sit­u­a­tions and that the per­ma­nent mea­sures have not yet been com­plet­ed. There are drainage is­sues ex­ter­nal to the site, not just here and we have a drainage so­lu­tion," Cun­ning­ham said. Cun­ning­ham fur­ther said the hous­ing de­vel­op­ment "won't have over­head pow­er lines. All elec­tri­cal and com­mu­ni­ca­tion lines will be placed un­der­ground." He said these plans have al­so de­layed the com­ple­tion of the units.

HDC re­sponds

A state­ment from HDC on the mat­ter stat­ed: "The gen­er­al area of this spe­cif­ic HDC de­vel­op­ment is flood-prone and a need for up­grades to the drainage sys­tem in the gen­er­al area is re­quired. The wa­ter which caus­es the site to be flood­ed orig­i­nates from ar­eas ex­ter­nal to the site, specif­i­cal­ly from the north and east­ern bound­aries of the site."

Squat­ters slow­ing process

The HDC project has al­so been slowed by squat­ters and ten­ants on the land. The few squat­ters who are still in ne­go­ti­a­tions with the HDC are lo­cat­ed in the ar­eas ear­marked for the sew­er treat­ment plant, wa­ter sup­ply and even­tu­al path­ways. Spring, who oc­cu­pies three-and-a-half-acres of land, was re­luc­tant to re­lo­cate. The for­mer pub­lic ser­vant said a num­ber of years ago he was ap­proached by HDC of­fi­cials about re­lo­cat­ing and had ex­pressed his dis­plea­sure about the idea to them. "I pay the land and build­ing tax­es for this land here. I have co­coa, or­anges and man­goes plant up on this land and over 100 fowls. They go­ing and root up all them trees. Where they could put me now?" He asked. Spring is not the on­ly one in the way of the HDC's plans as there are more squat­ters who are in the way of the com­ple­tion of 41 units.

–with re­port­ing by Nicke­sha Alexan­der-Fras­er