Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Far­ley Au­gus­tine has said that it will be dif­fi­cult for two of the sev­en re­main­ing fam­i­lies af­fect­ed by the con­struc­tion of the To­ba­go air­port ter­mi­nal and run­way, will find it dif­fi­cult to move by Thurs­day Sep­tem­ber 15 as or­dered by the court.

Au­gus­tine and a team of THA of­fi­cials met with the fam­i­lies on Sat­ur­day.

He said the THA sup­port­ed the call from the res­i­dents for the ad­di­tion­al time to al­low for among oth­er things, ne­go­ti­a­tion and col­lec­tion of fair pay­ments for prop­er­ty, con­struc­tion of new homes in part or whole, stor­age, com­ple­tion of land prepa­ra­tion at Cove, and the ul­ti­mate move­ment of these fam­i­lies.

He said to move them pre­ma­ture­ly may re­sult in sig­nif­i­cant so­cial harm. He said that the de­lay caused by the court case and the ad­vo­ca­cy re­sult­ed in some fam­i­lies now be­ing ready to move but added that it would be dif­fi­cult for at least two of these fam­i­lies to move by Sep­tem­ber 15.

He said that in the meet­ing, the two Per­cy fam­i­lies whose homes are al­ready be­ing de­mol­ished, have been giv­en new ac­com­mo­da­tion and land that is ac­cept­able to the fam­i­lies al­low­ing them to move be­fore Sep­tem­ber 15.

"They will have a roof over their head and off the use of gen­er­a­tors this com­ing week," he said.

He added that the Hen­rys have al­ready be­gun de­cant­i­ng from their homes and have a tem­po­rary ac­com­mo­da­tion plan un­til rental ac­com­mo­da­tion can be found for them.

"They have fi­nal­ized their choice of lot/land, stor­age will be pro­vid­ed by the THA and at­tempts made to re­trieve their agreed com­pen­sa­tion for their prop­er­ty from the court so they can be­gin to build im­me­di­ate­ly. They can move on or be­fore Sep­tem­ber 15."

Au­gus­tine said that an­oth­er res­i­dent, Mr Mc­Dou­gal will get as­sis­tance with draughts­man ser­vices, the mov­ing of his ag­gre­gate and oth­er ma­te­ri­als to his new build­ing site, as well as prepa­ra­tion of his new lands so that he can restart con­struct­ing his home.

"He will need to go through the process of get­ting his com­pen­sa­tion. (Since he did not have a com­plet­ed home in the af­fect­ed area, the time­line doesn’t af­fect him). There is an of­fer for the THA to as­sist him in the ac­tu­al re­build­ing," he said.

He said the 80-year-old Phillis An­tho­ny will re­ceive new ac­com­mo­da­tion from the THA.

"Her son (whose house is not yet de­mol­ished) will stay tem­porar­i­ly with her, will get help mov­ing his per­son­al be­long­ings and valu­ables in­to stor­age, and has al­ready been as­signed lands to be­gin re­build­ing his home. His moth­er will re­main in the new ac­com­mo­da­tion af­ter he has com­plet­ed re­build­ing his home. He too will need to go through the process for his com­pen­sa­tion."

Au­gus­tine said an­oth­er res­i­dent, Mr Melville will def­i­nite­ly not be ful­ly ready for Sep­tem­ber 15.

"Stor­age will be pro­vid­ed for him but it will be a mam­moth task for the pack­ing giv­en the size of the es­tate. He needs to com­plete process of ne­go­ti­a­tion and com­pen­sa­tion. The THA will al­so help with rental but there seem to be a low in­ven­to­ry in the area. Mr Melville agreed to­day to land for him­self and will be one of the 50 peo­ple we will help re­build. The rest of the fam­i­ly who co-owns the es­tate, will be al­lo­cat­ed land that can be shared among them. So the con­ver­sa­tion con­tin­ues with his un­cle Mr Per­cy to or­ga­nize the rest of the fam­i­ly that is not now af­fect­ed but will be af­fect­ed some­time soon. Mr Melville still has to ne­go­ti­ate and ap­ply for his com­pen­sa­tion."

He said the Alexan­der fam­i­ly is the most dif­fi­cult task.

"They have two build­ings on the same land. One is a mas­sive struc­ture. They have sev­er­al apart­ments, and three dis­tinct fam­i­ly dwelling ar­eas built in­to the same op­er­a­tions. On top of that, they have in­ter­na­tion­al guests booked for Oc­to­ber through the end of the year that now have to be re­im­bursed and care­ful­ly di­rect­ed else­where. We will pro­vide stor­age at Shaw Park for their sev­er­al ap­pli­ances and fur­ni­ture. It will take a while to pack up all of these apart­ments and move the items. We have to find suit­able ac­com­mo­da­tion for three dis­tinct fam­i­ly set­tings which to­tals sev­en. There is no way all of this can be done by Sep­tem­ber 15."

Au­gus­tine said his ad­min­is­tra­tion’s po­si­tion re­mains con­sis­tent.

"While we sup­port the con­struc­tion of a new ter­mi­nal, there must be fair com­pen­sa­tion (pay­ment at the re­place­ment val­ue for homes), ad­e­quate tem­po­rary ac­com­mo­da­tion and or time giv­en for con­struc­tion of new homes and en­ter­pris­es. There must be a hu­mane way to do this. And by the way, some of these af­fect­ed fam­i­lies are claim­ing that they were not even com­pen­sat­ed from the move in the 80s for the cur­rent run­way."

He said that notwith­stand­ing this, the THA stands with the res­i­dents.

"When they lose, we lose. When they win, we win. De­spite their loss in court on Fri­day, the THA will find a way for them to win."