The San Fernando waterfront project, a billion-dollar vision for Trinidad's southern city

The San Fernando Waterfront development project had been nothing more than promises and “ole talk” by several administrations for decades.

But within the past four years, residents of the country’s second-largest city finally began seeing evidence of these promises materialising.

Let’s review the project’s journey over the past ten years.

IN the 2010 general election campaign, former San Fernando West MP Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan said she had plans to “transform” the San Fernando Waterfront.

She said the project "will see the light of the day under the government of the People’s Partnership and it will bring all the commercial and community benefits we have promised.”

Clean-up and beautification efforts were made, but the project did not materialise.

In 2013, San Fernando mayor Navi Muradali turned the sod for the development of the boardwalk. At that time, $6 million was allocated to that part of the project and a substantial amount of work was expected to be completed within four months.

But still, nothing major materialised.

In June 2015, Planning Minister Dr Bhoendradatt Tewarie said work would begin “soon,” before the September 7, 2015 general election. That year, the UNC’s candidate for San Fernando West was Raziah Ahmed. During her campaign, she said once elected, she promised the waterfront project "will be at the top of my list of things to enrich the lives of my constituents.

“This is the flagship project,” she said. “The vision is to have a big tourist impact on the San Fernando waterfront, not just for the local community…to create restaurants, recreational facilities, fishing and boating activities, etc. This is the major, most exciting project for the moment. There are many more.”

But with the UNC losing the election, “soon” ended up being later than Tewarie expected.

In 2017, Cabinet named the project’s executing agencies as the Land Settlement Agency (LSA), the Urban Development Corporation of TT (Udecott), the San Fernando City Corporation and the PTSC (Public Transport Services Commission).

In the 2017/2018 budget, three sub-projects within the overall upgrade were allocated $13 million. A total of $5 million was allocated to relocate squatters, another $5 million to relocate the PTSC garage from King’s Wharf to a facility in Golconda once occupied by bankrupt Brazilian company Construtora OAS, and $3 million to restore the Plaza San Carlos District Historic Centre. Additionally, $8 million was allocated to land reclamation.

In 2018, Minister of Works and Transport Rohan Sinanan said $143 million had been allocated over a two-year period for the start of the project.

Another sod-turning ceremony was held for the project on June 26, 2020. Additionally, Udecott was named the main company to oversee the $1.37 billion project, which the Planning Ministry said is part of Vision 2030.

Pandemic caused delays

Udecott’s website says the project aims to increase opportunities for international and local tourism, expand the city’s business sector, improve transport facilities, develop leisure facilities, increase family-oriented spaces and activities and preserve historical assets.

It said, “The San Fernando Waterfront has the potential to be the commercial core of the city with increased opportunities for income-generating activities, as well as improved living conditions for people in the south…(It) presents a potential landscape of high amenities and functional value, due to its picturesque shoreline and proximity to the Southern-Central business district.”

San Fernando West MP and Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi said this will create some 15,000 short-term and long-term jobs. It consists of around 30 sub-projects.

Phase one includes reclaiming 3.8 hectares of land at King’s Wharf, relocating the PTSC’s maintenance facilities, upgrading Lady Hailes Road and boardwalk, restoring the Plaza San Carlos Historical District, a $118 million public carpark, Lady Hailes Housing development, a fishing facility and coastal wall development.

Udecott applied for a certificate of environmental clearance (CEC) from the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) on July 10, 2018 for the land reclamation process. On April 2, 2020, the EMA issued a draft terms of reference to Udecott, informing it that an environmental impact assessment was required to determine whether the CEC would be granted. The final version of this draft was submitted on May 15, 2020.

The relocation of the PTSC garage is still not finished, despite its being announced the process was “90 per cent complete” in 2019 and “should be fully moved out by December 2019.”

The same was said in December 2020.

PTSC chairman Edwin Gooding said the covid19 pandemic caused delays. He said by the end of March, the new building should be ready and then the PTSC has a month to move over.

“We have experience in doing relocation. We have in the past have to move staff and there’s a template, pre-planning, actual planning and then the execution. So we’re already behind (with) that process. The staff and the union are involved. We visited the site and they know where each department is going to be located.”

Phase one ready by 2022

President of the Greater San Fernando Area Chamber of Commerce Kiran Singh, who was born and raised in San Fernando, said that as a resident, he had given up hope of any such project ever happening.

“Quite honestly, it’s decades we have been talking about developing the waterfront, even before Diane Seukeran was (San Fernando West) MP (in 2002). Successive governments have been talking about developing a plan to develop the waterfront and forming various committees.

“We saw Port of Spain get theirs, and it is of a very elegant, first-world standard.

"And San Fernando, as usual, was left behind, languishing. And I kept making the point that all the wealth and money (is) to develop this same country.”

He said he is glad it has finally started, and rubbished claims by some that the project was moving slowly.

“I pass here every day and Junior Sammy (Contractors Ltd) and Coosal (Construction Ltd) workers are working Sunday to Sunday on the road widening. And that has to be done because of the traffic congestion we are facing.

“This has been the most comprehensive plan we have seen to date.

"Older plans just included the removal of squatters and street dwellers and relocating fishermen and build a simple boardwalk. It didn’t include the kind of development being envisioned now.”

Senior project manager at Udecott Terence Beepath told Business Day despite the covid19 pandemic, phase one is still expected to be completed by 2022.

But when it comes to the squatters, he said, “Some of them have agreed and some of them are challenging it. Some of them have actually submitted some legal stuff. They’re all squatters, the land is owned by PTSC.

“We are pushing hard to have the project continue. We have the commitment from the government to make it happen.”