Charles Kong Soo

Guave Road farm­ers are call­ing on Plan­ning Min­is­ter Dr Bhoen­dra­datt Tewarie and the Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA) to re­veal to the pub­lic the re­al scope of phase two of the Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Project.Pres­i­dent of the Guave Road Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, Joseph Richard­son, is mak­ing the call on be­half of his mem­bers, who claim that the land area sched­uled for de­vel­op­ment is much big­ger than what the pub­lic is be­ing told.

Speak­ing with the Sun­day Guardian on Wednes­day, Richard­son said, "What the CDA didn't men­tion or in­clude in the CEC (cer­tifi­cate of en­vi­ron­men­tal clear­ance) they re­ceived from the EMA (En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty) was the 100 acres of Wet­lands 55.

"They claim that Wet­lands 55 is just the Cue­sa Riv­er on­ly, which is 40 feet across, but the wet­lands ex­tend over 800 me­tres from the Cue­sa Riv­er head­ing east to the Guave Road en­trance on the West­ern Main Road and they're shield­ing that from the pub­lic."If it was men­tioned that so many acres of vi­tal ecosys­tems of man­groves and prime agri­cul­tur­al land would be de­stroyed for hous­ing and recre­ation­al de­vel­op­ment, work could not have start­ed on the project."

He added, "Most peo­ple don't know that man­grove forests pro­vide pro­tec­tion against beach ero­sion, storms, tsunamis and floods. "The tsuna­mi that hit Asia in 2005, there were no deaths in ar­eas where there were man­grove forests com­pared to those ar­eas with­out cov­er­age that suf­fered mas­sive ca­su­al­ties."

In ad­vanc­ing his ar­gu­ment, Richard­son said there were two sluice gates built by the US sol­diers dur­ing World War II at the road next to the Ch­aguara­mas Board­walk that were now cov­ered with large rocks and plants. He said the sluice gates' pur­pose was to drain the wet­lands, which was a catch­ment area that col­lect­ed wa­ter dur­ing the rainy sea­son.

He said when the wa­ter reached a cer­tain lev­el, like three feet, it was grad­u­al­ly re­leased in­to the sea and the sluice gates were so de­signed that wa­ter from the wet­lands could go out but sea­wa­ter could not en­ter.He said if the sluice gates were cov­ered with con­crete and the wet­lands filled to be­gin hous­ing de­vel­op­ment,not on­ly would the wet­lands, beach­front and ma­jor parts of the penin­su­la be flood­ed, but traf­fic chaos would en­sue and fam­i­lies would be dis­placed.

"It will be like the Red Bull Flug­tag 2011 traf­fic night­mare every day in Ch­aguara­mas," he said.Richard­son said the farm­ers be­lieved the CDA was cater­ing to the elite and to for­eign­ers.He said the CDA want­ed ac­cess to the en­tire front of Tuck­er Val­ley for its grand plan, which en­tailed cre­at­ing an ex­clu­sive area for the busi­ness elite. This in­clud­ed restau­rants, re­sorts jut­ting out of the Board­walk, ca­ble cars in the air, a game park, wa­ter park and a golf course, he said.

He point­ed out that the CDA was very clever in its op­er­a­tions, do­ing the project in in­cre­men­tal stages–phase one was the Board­walk to please the "com­mon peo­ple" fol­lowed by its ex­ten­sion and the mega de­vel­op­ment projects for the su­per rich.Richard­son claimed a jet­ty sched­uled for con­struc­tion not too far off from the Al­coa jet­ty was in re­al­i­ty a wind­break­er for the yachts the CDA want­ed to cater for in­side the Care­nage basin.

Tewarie: Con­cerns weighed in plans

Plan­ning Min­is­ter Dr Bhoen­dra­datt Tewarie says the con­cerns of the farm­ers, res­i­dents and spe­cial in­ter­est groups had been tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion and the cur­rent con­struc­tion work be­ing done in the penin­su­la would ease the con­ges­tion in the long run.

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian, Tewarie said, "Iron­i­cal­ly, the ques­tion posed ad­dress­es pre­cise­ly why the Guave Ex­ten­sion Road project was en­vis­aged in the first place, that is, to re­duce traf­fic con­ges­tion and make for a safer, eas­i­er ac­cess in­to and out of Ch­aguara­mas.

"But ac­cess to and from Ch­aguara­mas will con­tin­ue to be a prob­lem un­til we build an al­ter­na­tive route and this is what we're con­sid­er­ing now. But it can on­ly get to the con­sul­ta­tion and pos­si­bly de­sign stage this year. The ac­tu­al road to and from Ch­aguara­mas will be a sec­ond-term project."

He added, "The CDA has con­duct­ed a care­ful de­vel­op­ment plan for the penin­su­la that con­sid­ers so many needs, the metic­u­lous preser­va­tion of the nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment, the al­lo­ca­tion of the best ar­eas for agri­cul­tur­al pur­pos­es, the op­ti­mi­sa­tion of road net­works, the peo­ple-cen­tred de­vel­op­ment of the com­mu­ni­ty, the cre­ation of thou­sands of jobs, the ex­e­cu­tion of world-class recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties and the ide­al of mak­ing Ch­aguara­mas an area of op­por­tu­ni­ty for all."

Tewarie said he met with con­sul­tants re­cent­ly and gave his in­put and he was sat­is­fied they would have a peo­ple-cen­tred plan for the sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment of Ch­aguara­mas very soon.Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar opened phase two of the board­walk project at Ch­aguara­mas on De­cem­ber 18, while a group of Guave Road farm­ers protest­ed a short dis­tance away on the Care­nage Main Road.

She said phase two would en­tail an ex­tend­ed board­walk, ac­tiv­i­ty pond and food court. Work to de­vel­op Ch­aguara­mas to its full po­ten­tial would con­tin­ue with the CDA's plans, she said, which in­clud­ed world-class mari­nas, ho­tels, wa­ter­front restau­rants, an amuse­ment park and a golf course re­sort.

The PM said sev­er­al up­grades were al­so sched­uled, such as the Ch­aguara­mas Ho­tel and Con­ven­tion Cen­tre, a golf course to meet in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards, Chagville Beach re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and the reaf­foresta­tion of hills and green spaces.

She said the ob­jec­tions to the project did not mat­ter, as plans for Ch­aguara­mas would bring the penin­su­la back to the peo­ple. The PM said the Gov­ern­ment was aware of the traf­fic woes in Ch­aguara­mas and "nov­el" ac­cess points were in­clud­ed in the plans.

De Ver­teuil: Brace for traf­fic, flood­ing

With the on­set of the new year, up­com­ing Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties, cou­pled with de­vel­op­ment works at Guave Road, Tuck­er Val­ley, mean res­i­dents and vis­i­tors alike should brace for traf­fic grid­lock in the north­west penin­su­la.This is the view of Marc de Ver­teuil, a di­rec­tor of the Pa­pa Bois Con­ser­va­tion group.

Speak­ing with the Sun­day Guardian at Guave Road, while con­struc­tion work was go­ing on, De Ver­teuil said the CDA's in­tent was to build a 6.75 acre car park, farm­ers' mar­ket and tramway. Con­struc­tion of all this in­fra­struc­ture, he said, was a lo­gis­ti­cal trans­port night­mare in the mak­ing.He said Ch­aguara­mas al­ready suf­fered from dai­ly traf­fic jams that could take an hour or more to nav­i­gate and there was no trans­port or in­fra­struc­ture ca­pac­i­ty to al­low for ad­di­tion­al peo­ple en­ter­ing the penin­su­la.

De Ver­teuil said 21st-cen­tu­ry mass trans­port was need­ed to ful­fil Ch­aguara­mas' tran­sit needs. He said flood­ing could al­so com­pound traf­fic prob­lems in the area.

Just last month, the CDA is­sued an apol­o­gy for the traf­fic con­ges­tion due to the in­fra­struc­tur­al drainage and wa­ter works be­ing car­ried out in Ch­aguara­mas to al­le­vi­ate flood­ing that had be­come com­mon­place.

He said the CDA's plan in­clud­ed the repaving and ex­pan­sion of roads, con­struc­tion of a bi­cy­cle path, a tramway, a farm­ers' mar­ket and a "fright­en­ing­ly mas­sive" 27,300-square-me­tre car park, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 6.75 acres, which would de­stroy the am­biance of the area. He said for all in­tents and pur­pos­es, Guave Road was a part of Tuck­er Val­ley, an area rich in bio­di­ver­si­ty and of huge im­por­tance for recre­ation.

De Ver­teuil said this was sim­ply the wrong kind of de­vel­op­ment for this par­tic­u­lar lo­ca­tion. He said Tuck­er Val­ley–where there wre red howler mon­keys and ocelots, among a pletho­ra of oth­er an­i­mals–was turn­ing in­to a sub­ur­ban park for Port-of-Spain. He said the area was part of the World War II naval base and rep­re­sent­ed a wild area close to the cap­i­tal city of T&T.

Tuck­er Val­ley unique

De Ver­teuil said Tuck­er Val­ley was unique and ir­re­place­able, as well as pop­u­lar, be­cause it was nat­ur­al and eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble. He said it was a ma­jor part of what made Ch­aguara­mas a pop­u­lar recre­ation area and Guave Road was the first phase of a creep­ing de­vel­op­ment in­to Tuck­er Val­ley.He said he was not op­posed to sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, but the planned project was not the eco­tourism that was re­quired but rather was a zon­ing mis­take of the first or­der.

De Ver­teuil said there was enough un­used land in Ch­aguara­mas out­side of Tuck­er Val­ley where low-im­pact high-rise car parks could be built. He said Tuck­er Val­ley should be de­clared a na­tion­al park in or­der to pro­tect it. Many peo­ple false­ly be­lieved that de­vel­op­ment was not al­lowed in Tuck­er Val­ley, he said, but there was no leg­is­la­tion to pre­vent it.

He said he was invit­ing con­cerned cit­i­zens and users of Ch­aguara­mas to form an in­de­pen­dent lob­by group so that all stake­hold­ers would be ad­e­quate­ly rep­re­sent­ed. De Ver­teuil can be con­tact­ed by e-mail at: marc@pa­pabois­con­ser­va­tion.org

The Sun­day Guardian's queries re­gard­ing the con­cerns of Ch­aguara­mas res­i­dents, farm­ers and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists were al­so sent to the CDA and the EMA which did not re­spond.