One of the first and most im­por­tant com­ments com­ing from the res­i­dents of Sea Lots re­act­ing to the plan for re­de­vel­op­ment of the area, “is when you watch de­vel­op­ment is for who?” What the in­di­vid­ual is say­ing in re­la­tion to the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mend­able en­vis­ag­ing of a trans­formed area right at the city’s lim­its, is to the ef­fect that if peo­ple are not at the cen­tre of the plans for de­vel­op­ment, then it’s of no val­ue to them and is de­signed for oth­ers.

Over the decades of the ex­is­tence of the area, that is, the ex­pand­ed com­mu­ni­ties reach­ing out from Sea Lots to Beetham, to John John, St Paul Street, trav­el­ling west in­to the “Plan­nings” and the gen­er­al Be­hind the Bridge area of old Port-of-Spain, the thoughts and in­ten­tions to up­grade have not fo­cused on hav­ing res­i­dents be­ing part of the en­hanced com­mu­ni­ty.

An­oth­er ap­proach can be to think about the peo­ple of these ar­eas as be­ing part of the planned trans­for­ma­tion. In the in­stance of Sea Lots, push the in­tend­ed in­dus­tri­al and busi­ness op­er­a­tions fur­ther east along the Beetham High­way, while en­gag­ing the denizens of the area in di­rect­ed ed­u­ca­tion, train­ing, and the hu­man de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives to turn them in­to pro­duc­tive cit­i­zens. To push them in­to an­oth­er com­mu­ni­ty of un­der­de­vel­op­ment will re­sult in fur­ther de­hu­man­iza­tion and cre­ate even greater so­cial prob­lems for the whole of T&T.

In the same man­ner that the “Mang” -- man­grove of Co­corite -- was de­vel­oped to cre­ate the mid­dle-class res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial West­moor­ings of to­day, so too the Mang of Beetham and even­tu­al­ly the Labass can be con­vert­ed in­to ar­eas for in­dus­tri­al pro­duc­tion of all kinds.

Look­ing to the fu­ture, what is im­me­di­ate­ly need­ed is to in­volve the peo­ple of the com­mu­ni­ty of Sea Lots and the ad­ja­cent ar­eas in a thor­ough dis­cus­sion of their place in the de­vel­op­ment pro­gram­ming and to “lis­ten to the voic­es of the peo­ple”.

If not, as has hap­pened be­fore, the res­i­dents of Sea Lots will op­pose what they con­sid­er to be dis­plac­ing them to fa­cil­i­tate cor­po­rate big busi­ness to en­joy the fruits of the land. The re­ac­tion of the peo­ple of the area will be neg­a­tive, and why not?

What is clear­ly need­ed is an in­ten­tion to cre­ate train­ing and ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties for the res­i­dents of Sea Lots and oth­er ar­eas. Al­low them to con­tin­ue liv­ing a stone’s throw from the city where em­ploy­ment and fi­nan­cial pos­si­bil­i­ties are with­in their phys­i­cal reach.

Have them be­come cen­tral to the plan­ning and de­vel­op­ment of go­ing fur­ther east from their com­mu­ni­ties. Cre­ate train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for them to be em­ploy­able in the phys­i­cal con­struc­tion for in­dus­try.

To push them out will not on­ly de­ny them the op­por­tu­ni­ty for hu­man trans­for­ma­tion but al­so make them in­to dere­licts, good on­ly to be shoved in­to an­oth­er com­mu­ni­ty like the one they have come from. It will de­stroy their sense of self-worth, and so we cre­ate an­oth­er per­son to be afraid of.

The Sea Lots and ad­join­ing ar­eas are sure­ly in need of trans­for­ma­tion, but it must not be that the in­ten­tion is sim­ply to shove peo­ple out of the homes and com­mu­ni­ties they have lived all their lives. It must be an op­por­tu­ni­ty for them to ad­vance in their hu­man­i­ty.