Shizelle Ramjit and

Derek Out­ridge

Just over a month ago, a hous­ing fair was held at the Hilton Trinidad Ho­tel, where more than 3,000 homes across var­i­ous hous­ing de­vel­op­ments were show­cased by nu­mer­ous de­vel­op­ers. If these projects are not al­ready ap­proved, they could place sig­nif­i­cant strain on our pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture and so­cial ameni­ties.

While growth and in­vest­ment are wel­come, we must ask: at what cost will these pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture and so­cial ameni­ties come, and who will ul­ti­mate­ly bear that cost?

The hard truth is that the bur­den of up­grad­ing in­fra­struc­ture—such as wa­ter sup­ply, elec­tric­i­ty, sewage, and roads—as well as pro­vid­ing so­cial ameni­ties like com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres, sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties, po­lice and fire sta­tions, and parks, is of­ten passed on to tax­pay­ers. Mean­while, de­vel­op­ers reap prof­its, while the pub­lic and the Gov­ern­ment are left to ab­sorb the strain.

Take wa­ter as an ex­am­ple. WASA, the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty, al­ready has many ar­eas on sched­uled sup­ply due to drought and age­ing in­fra­struc­ture. Yet new hous­ing de­vel­op­ments con­tin­ue to emerge—each re­quir­ing new main­line wa­ter con­nec­tions and adding fur­ther pres­sure to an al­ready over­stretched sys­tem.

In some cas­es, WASA asks de­vel­op­ers to man­age waste on-site to avoid over­load­ing pub­lic sys­tems. But these are tem­po­rary fix­es to a deep­er is­sue: who is re­spon­si­ble for fund­ing the ex­pan­sion and mod­erni­sa­tion of our core util­i­ty in­fra­struc­ture as de­vel­op­ment ac­cel­er­ates?

Now let’s look at elec­tric­i­ty. When a de­vel­op­er builds a new hous­ing com­mu­ni­ty, they are re­quired to make a cap­i­tal con­tri­bu­tion to T&TEC. This pay­ment typ­i­cal­ly cov­ers the cost of ex­tend­ing phys­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture—such as new lines, poles, trans­form­ers, and, in some cas­es, up­grades to sub­sta­tions. How­ev­er, this con­tri­bu­tion on­ly ad­dress­es the in­fra­struc­ture need­ed to de­liv­er elec­tric­i­ty; it does not ac­count for the in­creased de­mand for the coun­try’s pow­er gen­er­a­tion sys­tem.

T&TEC pays a fixed cost for pow­er gen­er­a­tion, in­clud­ing ca­pac­i­ty that may not yet be in use. As new homes and com­mu­ni­ties are added to the grid, they be­gin to draw on this re­served ca­pac­i­ty. Over time, as de­mand grows, T&TEC must ac­ti­vate ad­di­tion­al—and of­ten less ef­fi­cient—pow­er plants. These plants con­sume more nat­ur­al gas per unit of elec­tric­i­ty, dri­ving up both fu­el use and over­all costs.

Con­tin­ues on page 18

From page 17

And who ab­sorbs this ad­di­tion­al cost? It’s nei­ther the de­vel­op­er nor the home­buy­er—it’s the State and, ul­ti­mate­ly, the tax­pay­ers. Elec­tric­i­ty rates in Trinidad and To­ba­go are heav­i­ly sub­sidised, and any tar­iff in­creas­es re­quire both po­lit­i­cal and reg­u­la­to­ry ap­proval. As a re­sult, T&TEC can­not sim­ply pass on ris­ing costs to con­sumers through high­er fees. In­stead, these in­creased ex­pens­es are qui­et­ly ab­sorbed through na­tion­al fu­el sub­si­dies and the pub­lic purse.

So, while it may ap­pear that de­vel­op­ers are “pay­ing their share”, the true, long-term cost of meet­ing the en­er­gy de­mand of large-scale de­vel­op­ments is ul­ti­mate­ly borne by the peo­ple of T&T.

In coun­tries like the Unit­ed King­dom (UK), de­vel­op­ers are re­quired to con­tribute to the pub­lic good through Sec­tion 106 agree­ments, which com­pel them to help fund schools, in­fra­struc­ture, and pub­lic ser­vices that will be im­pact­ed by their de­vel­op­ments. This is done through the con­cept of plan­ning gains and oblig­a­tions.

Could a plan­ning mod­el like what ex­ists in the UK be im­ple­ment­ed here? It rais­es a fair ques­tion: shouldn’t pri­vate de­vel­op­ers con­tribute more di­rect­ly to the very sys­tems they re­ly up­on? Do they not have an oblig­a­tion to those that they sell their prod­ucts to, en­sure that they re­alise their dreams in re­turn for the sale?

Plan­ning gains are ways lo­cal au­thor­i­ties in the UK se­cure ad­di­tion­al pub­lic ben­e­fits from de­vel­op­ers when grant­i­ng plan­ning per­mis­sion. This is done through plan­ning oblig­a­tions—con­tracts made be­tween the landown­er or de­vel­op­er and the plan­ning au­thor­i­ty. Plan­ning oblig­a­tions can be agreed up­on at any stage of the plan­ning process, but they most com­mon­ly arise dur­ing plan­ning per­mis­sion ap­pli­ca­tions. These oblig­a­tions of­ten in­clude fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tions to­wards schools, roads, trans­port, pub­lic spaces, and af­ford­able hous­ing.

Plan­ning gains aim to cap­ture part of the in­crease in land val­ue cre­at­ed by grant­i­ng plan­ning per­mis­sion. They help en­sure that com­mer­cial­ly vi­able de­vel­op­ments are not so­cial­ly or en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly un­sus­tain­able. These gains are used to fund pub­lic goods such as af­ford­able hous­ing, com­mu­ni­ty in­fra­struc­ture (like li­braries or parks), and en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tions.

Plan­ning gains re­fer to any as­pects of a de­vel­op­ment pro­pos­al re­quired for it to pro­ceed, in­clud­ing fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tions to pub­lic ser­vices. These are se­cured by the plan­ning au­thor­i­ty to mit­i­gate the de­vel­op­ment’s im­pact on the lo­cal com­mu­ni­ty and to de­ter­mine whether the de­vel­op­er will pro­vide, or be en­cour­aged to pro­vide, cer­tain in­fra­struc­ture and so­cial ameni­ties as part of the de­vel­op­ment.

In the UK, such arrange­ments are ne­go­ti­at­ed be­tween the de­vel­op­er and the lo­cal plan­ning au­thor­i­ty un­der Sec­tion 106 of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Act 1990. In T&T, this role is car­ried out by the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion.

A ques­tion that should have been asked long ago is: what kind of com­mu­ni­ties are we build­ing? Many large-scale hous­ing de­vel­op­ments are con­struct­ed with­out recre­ation­al spaces, com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres, sports fa­cil­i­ties, or green ar­eas. Hun­dreds of fam­i­lies move in­to these new es­tates with no places to re­lax, play, or con­nect. This lack of com­mu­nal space has re­al con­se­quences for men­tal health, so­cial de­vel­op­ment, and emo­tion­al well-be­ing. A house is not tru­ly a home if there is no room to breathe, grow, or build re­la­tion­ships.

Some de­vel­op­ers ar­gue that adding ameni­ties dri­ves up hous­ing costs, mak­ing homes less af­ford­able. Oth­ers be­lieve that pro­vid­ing com­mu­ni­ty in­fra­struc­ture is the Gov­ern­ment’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Both points hold some truth. How­ev­er, there is a mid­dle ground: what if we in­tro­duced tax in­cen­tives to en­cour­age cer­tain types of de­vel­op­ments in need­ed lo­ca­tions, or re­quired that a small per­cent­age of de­vel­op­ment bud­gets be ded­i­cat­ed to com­mu­ni­ty well-be­ing and util­i­ty up­grades—es­sen­tial­ly plan­ning gains and oblig­a­tions? This ap­proach could ease the bur­den on gov­ern­ment bud­gets, re­duce pres­sure on the pub­lic purse, and help keep tax­es low­er.

What if Town and Coun­try Plan­ning and the Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions were bet­ter re­sourced and em­pow­ered not just to ap­prove hous­ing plans, but to en­sure those plans align with sus­tain­able, in­clu­sive growth and re­silient ob­jec­tives? De­vel­op­ment shouldn’t just be about how many hous­es we can cram on­to a plot of land. It should al­so be about the qual­i­ty of life for the peo­ple will live there.

It is time for a more holis­tic ap­proach to pri­vate hous­ing de­vel­op­ment. One where de­vel­op­ers, reg­u­la­tors and cit­i­zens all play a role in build­ing not just hous­es, but strong, con­nect­ed com­mu­ni­ties sup­port­ed by func­tion­ing in­fra­struc­ture. Growth is nec­es­sary, but it must be re­silient, sus­tain­able, eq­ui­table, and peo­ple-cen­tred.

If we don’t be­gin ask­ing these ques­tions now, fu­ture gen­er­a­tions will con­tin­ue to pay the price.

Shizelle Ramjit–SB­Sc Civ­il with En­vi­ron­men­tal En­gi­neer­ing, MSc Con­struc­tion Man­age­ment, Grad­u­ate Mem­ber APETT and ICE email: ramjit­shizelle@gmail.com

Derek Out­ridge–BSc Quan­ti­ty Sur­vey­ing, MPhil Sur­vey­ing and Land In­for­ma­tion (Ur­ban Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment) Post Grad­u­ate Diplo­ma in Law, email: derek­out@hot­mail.com