Shal­iza Has­sanali

Up­scale prop­er­ties in Mara­cas Val­ley, St Joseph are los­ing val­ue be­cause of wide­spread squat­ting. A sprawl­ing man­sion in Al­ta Gra­cia val­ued at $2.8 mil­lion about two years ago is now priced at a pal­try $1.1mil­lion. While lots of land con­sid­ered prime re­al es­tate in the af­flu­ent area once fetched a cool $1mil­lion, they are no longer at­trac­tive to buy­ers. One home­own­er, who has been bat­tling with squat­ters in the area, ad­mit­ted that his pala­tial house, which had a price tag of close to $3 mil­lion, was put up for sale last week. "One per­son ex­pressed an in­ter­est to buy af­ter view­ing it in the night," the home­own­er ex­plained. The in­ter­est­ed par­ty, how­ev­er, re­turned days lat­er to seal the deal on­ly to see a squat­ting set­tle­ment over­look­ing the posh prop­er­ty.

"Ap­par­ent­ly the squat­ters had turned off the buy­er who in­stant­ly dropped his of­fer by $2 mil­lion. I was on­ly of­fered $1mil­lion which I could not ac­cept." In the last four years, the Mara­cas Val­ley Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (MVAC) has seen the emer­gence of ten squat­ting sites, which they said has brought no end of wor­ry to a com­mu­ni­ty made up large­ly of pro­fes­sion­als. Ar­eas like La Ba­ja, La Sei­va, La Man­go, Wharfe Trace, Green Hill, El Tu­cuche, Trac­tor Hill and Acono Road are lit­tered with un­sight­ly gal­vanise and wood­en shacks, some perched pre­car­i­ous­ly on the edge of steep hills where own­ers can­not be ser­viced by fire and health ser­vices, while oth­ers have erect­ed rick­ety homes hid­den among thick fo­liage.

While CEO of the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA) Dr Allen Sam­my es­ti­mat­ed there could be close to 300 squat­ting sites in Trinidad, the MVAC said the ten ar­eas they dis­cov­ered were omit­ted from the agency's data­base. Sam­my es­ti­mat­ed the squat­ting pop­u­la­tion in T&T to be 200,000 and grow­ing.?How­ev­er, so­cial sci­en­tist Dr L Trevor Grant, au­thor of the book "Liv­ing Dan­ger­ous­ly–Squat­ting in Trinidad and To­ba­go," which will be avail­able on book­shelves next month, cal­cu­late the squat­ting pop­u­la­tion to be 300,000 based on a sur­vey he con­duct­ed from 1996 to 2010. Grant al­so not­ed that there is a di­rect cor­re­la­tion be­tween squat­ting and pover­ty. These two prob­lems, Grant said, are in­ter­twined and con­tribute to drugs, sex, crime and promis­cu­ity in squat­ting set­tle­ments.

RIGHT: Pres­i­dent of the Mara­cas Val­ley Ac­tion Com­mit­tee Aver­il Ram­c­hand.

Liv­ing un­easy

Pres­i­dent of MVAC Aver­il Ram­c­hand said Mara­cas Val­ley–with a pop­u­la­tion of 12,000 and known for its breath­tak­ing land­scape–was slow­ly los­ing its beau­ty and green­ery due to squat­ters who have been en­croach­ing on state, agri­cul­tur­al and pri­vate lands. Ram­c­hand said the prob­lem has snow­balled with new squat­ters ven­tur­ing in­to up­mar­ket ar­eas caus­ing home­own­ers to sell their prop­er­ties or live un­easi­ly be­cause of the en­croach­ment. She list­ed two types of squat­ters in the val­ley–gen­er­a­tional and new­com­ers. Ram­c­hand said sev­er­al prop­er­ties in up­scale ar­eas which fetched top dol­lars a few years ago were be­ing sold for next to noth­ing be­cause of the squat­ters' in­va­sion.

"These squat­ters are de­valu­ing the prices of ex­trav­a­gant homes be­cause of their pres­ence," she point­ed out. "Be­sides, no one wants to live next to a squat­ter es­pe­cial­ly if they are show­ing no re­spect for law and or­der. That is the prob­lem home­own­ers are sad­dled with."

Ram­c­hand said the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment needs to in­sti­tute a land use pol­i­cy, and called for laws to be en­forced to deal with the on­go­ing prob­lem. "These squat­ters are not abid­ing with the com­mu­ni­ty's rules. They have al­so been en­croach­ing on peo­ple's land, en­gag­ing in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties. And when you talk to them they some­times be­come abu­sive and threat­en­ing," Ram­c­hand said last Thurs­day, while tour­ing sev­er­al ar­eas in the val­ley, show­ing how the in­flux of squat­ters has been chang­ing the land­scape.

A law­less so­ci­ety

Join­ing Ram­c­hand on the tour were MVAC's sec­re­tary Pat Mc Gaw and ac­tivist Sime­on Nakhid. "We have a law­less so­ci­ety. That is the cul­ture," she com­plained. "Peo­ple be­lieve they can do any­thing they like." Ram­c­hand said when mat­ters of squat­ting were re­port­ed to state agen­cies every­one seems to pass the buck. "No one wants to take the bull by the horns. They al­ways throw the blame on an­oth­er min­istry." Apart from cap­i­tal­is­ing on va­cant lands, the squat­ters are steal­ing elec­tric­i­ty and in some cas­es have made il­le­gal con­nec­tions to wa­ter mains as they ex­pand their wob­bly liv­ing quar­ters and in­crease the size of their fam­i­lies. Nakhid said res­i­dents in the val­ley mind their own busi­ness. "You can't speak out be­cause it could cost you your life. So rather than ob­ject to what the squat­ters do, peo­ple qui­et­ly pack up and leave. If bet­ter can't be done you take the pres­sure."

Sam­my: MPs to iden­ti­fy new squat­ting sites

On Fri­day, Sam­my ad­mit­ted that some peo­ple are squat­ting on lands over which the LSA may have no ju­ris­dic­tion. He not­ed that if a squat­ter was steal­ing wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty that was a mat­ter for T&TEC and WASA to in­ves­ti­gate. Sam­my said squat­ters oc­cu­py state, agri­cul­tur­al, pri­vate and land in­vest­ed in state agen­cies. "I have writ­ten all 39 MPs in Trinidad ask­ing them to iden­ti­fy new squat­ting sites in their com­mu­ni­ties." Sam­my said as soon as the LSA re­ceives feed­back from the MPs they will vis­it the sites. "We have al­ready done Ma­yaro, Princes Town South, Ca­roni South, Oropouche East and West and Siparia. We are do­ing lit­tle by lit­tle as the MPs re­spond to the let­ter." Sam­my said once the LSA gets a re­sponse from St Joseph MP Her­bert Vol­ney they will move in­to the val­ley. "We will be work­ing close­ly with the MP and the Min­is­ter of Food Pro­duc­tion Vas­ant Bharath to look at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of do­ing what we have to do in Mara­cas/St Joseph."