Shastri Boodan
Homeowners occupying the Felicity Residential Development are pleading with the relevant authorities to bring some measure of relief to them.
David Martin, chairman and spokesman for the community, said the area was overrun with bush, bandits and lacked basic services such as garbage collection. Armed with brush cutters, Martin and a group of residents started cleaning up the main road into area yesterday morning and launched their own neighbourhood watch group. He said the development has 800 housing lots at Peters Field, Chaguanas, but only 30 lots are occupied.
Martin said there are no basic services because the Estate Management Business Development company and Caroni (1975) Limited did not hand over the development to the Chaguanas Borough Corporation. Martin said because of this there are no clearing of bushes along the roadways, no garbage collection services, Cepep does not operate in the area and there is limited street lighting.
Martin said there was also a lot of criminal activity in the area. He said earlier in 2017 a woman was murdered and her body was dumped 200 feet from his house. Residents claimed that T&TEC came into the community and removed transformers and street lights from the poles and took it to another area, but had not replaced any of the fixtures. The area is also littered with massive pipelines that were for the Beetham Waster Water Project. Stefan Lai said bandits can hide in these pipes and rob residents. Lai said he and his wife are living in fear of being robbed and assaulted.
Mayor backs residents
Chaguanas Mayor Gopaul Boodhan, who was part of the exercise, said he stood in solidarity with the residents. Boodhan wants the relevant authorities to hand over the the development to the Chaguanas Borough Corporation so the necessary work can be done. Boodhan also made an appeal to landowners to clean up their empty lots. Boodhan said the Chaguanas police also needs additional manpower to police the rapidly expanding borough.