Home owners and business operators in western Trinidad have been warned to desist from constructing illegal carriageways/driveways and installing metal vehicular ramps as the Port-of-Spain City Corporation could soon be embarking on action to remove the structures.
Persons found to be in breach of the law can face a maximum fine of $5,000, plus an additional $500 thereafter, for each day the offence continues.
Pleading for the corporation to take action now, St James East Councillor, Jameel Bisnath, said it is time that errant law-breakers be made an “example.”
Making the impassioned plea during the corporation’s monthly statutory meeting at City Hall yesterday, Bisnath urged the council to take immediate action to ensure persons comply with the law as it was proving to be a “nuisance.”
Renewing the call he has been making for the past year, Bisnath said the problem increased as residential and commercial entities continued to ignore the regulations governing the construction of carriageways/driveways within the municipality.
Act 21 of 1990, section 125 (1) states, “No person may break up or open the surface pavement, or soil of any street within a Municipality which is maintainable by the Council or lay any pipe or wire or any other matter or thing in or under any such street or any part of the subsoil thereof for any purpose, or place or erect any pole, post hoarding or barricade or other structure in any such street without the prior consent of the Council.”
Urging mayor Joel Martinez to act, Bisnath said, “People putting down things left, right and centre, all over. Even on Independence Square.”
Appealing for some kind of assurance the problem would be addressed in the short-term, Bisnath explained, “People are putting down illegal metal ramps on the streets to access their properties and this is blocking the free flow of water and also hindering persons from parking.”
He added, “These ramps have the drains looking very nasty as our sweepers cannot get access to under them as a tractor is needed to remove them for the drain to be cleaned.”
Acknowledging that each property was allowed one entrance, he said persons without an entrance were entitled to come in to the City Engineer’s Department and apply for one at no cost to them. Bisnath added that the same rule applied to persons wanting additional entrances.
He warned that while there was no cost attached to constructing an entrance, the home-owner or business operator would be billed for the removal of any illegal structures by the corporation.
Bisnath said errant persons would be given a notice to desist and remove the ramps in the first instance, before the POSCC would take action.
During yesterday’s meeting, Martinez also commended the staff of the corporation for their efforts to ensure homes and businesses were not adversely affected by the passage of last week’s Tropical Storm Bret.
He applauded the commitment of the Disaster Management Unit under the stewardship of Keith Cook, whom he said was on hand to assist the three families who lost their roofs during the storm as well as the other four households who were left without an electricity supply after a pole was downed.
Martinez said the corporation had also begun a regularisation exercise along Charlotte St. as he said officials had already begun meeting with registered vendors to inform them of the process to revitalise that part of the City.
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