Emily: ‘Ministers don’t get involved’

FORMER housing minister Dr Emily Dick-Forde says she had no dealing with the stoppage and restarting of over 500 state constructed homes in Greenvale, La Horquetta.

In a telephone interview with Newsday yesterday Dick-Forde reiterated what she posted on Facebook that the Greenvale project was not something she was familiar with adding that it was close to a decade ago. Dick-Forde replaced then housing minister, now Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley in 2007, the housing project was halted in 2009, both Dick-Forde and Rowley were out of government in 2010.

Greenvale was devastated by at least six feet deep flooding two weeks ago. Following the flooding it was revealed that the area was a floodplain and approvals were sought to mitigate flooding after substantial amount of money had already been spent to construct the homes.

Dick-Forde became housing minister the year the project began and would have overlapped with Rowley. She retained her substantive ministry as planning and environment and therefore in charge of the Town and Country Planning Division which gives clearance for developments. In a Facebook post, Dick-Forde said she made it clear that projects must receive full planning permission and that good governance must prevail. Two years after assuming office, the Greenvale housing project was halted and resumed two years later.

“Engineering solutions for disaster prevention as well as plans for evacuations if similar or worst conditions are in the forecast must be the way forward. I must say that I was quite disgusted by the attempt at pinpointing blame on me,” she wrote.

From documents shown to Newsday, the first set of approvals to construct the homes in Greenvale, once called La Horquetta South, began in 2004 with a Certificate of Environmental Clearance (CEC).

In 2005 Town and Country gave permission to develop the land and work began in 2007. In 2008 the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) gave “outline approval” as well as the fire department.

On June 26, 2009, Town and Country division wrote to the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) “A Notice of Refusal” on the grounds that the area is a floodplain of the Caroni River and that no development should take place.

The other objection was that it was a conservation area. On October 27, 2011, HDC wrote to Town and Country telling them that they surveyed the area and made some suggestions that will mitigate flooding which included retention ponds an embankment and installing pumps. On November 17, 2014 Town and Country granted approval to HDC to continue the project on the condition that their suggestions be implemented that will mitigate flooding.

The initial project was five phases but phases four and five which up to 2014 was not yet developed, was completely abandoned. Phases one and two were completed in 2014 and the third phase in 2015, with distribution taking place between 2014 to 2016. The three phases were completed at a cost of $336 million vat exclusive which included the retention ponds, pumps and embankments. Phases one and two was constructed by Motilal Ramit and Sons Contracting Limited while phase three was done by Trinity Housing.

A hydrological report was ordered following the flooding by Rowley “to determine why Greenvale was so heavily impacted and to determine what if anything can be done in terms of physical works to interfere with the drainage system there to if not eliminate but to ameliorate and bring greater comfort to those persons who live in that area.”