Kevon Felmine

There was a last-minute rush on Wednes­day as dozens of King's Wharf squat­ters tried to meet the dead­line to re­spond to "show cause" no­tices served by the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion.The cor­po­ra­tion's pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer, Deb­bie Ram­lochan, said some squat­ters had sub­mit­ted their re­spons­es to the chair­man of the Lands Build­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment com­mit­tee, coun­cil­lor Daren Mc Leod, af­ter Tues­day's meet­ing with may­or Dr Navi Mu­radali.

Dur­ing a meet­ing on Tues­day, Mu­radali said he would write to the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion and the Land Set­tle­ment Agency to seek re­lo­ca­tion for the res­i­dents. He al­so agreed not to go ahead with the de­mo­li­tion of the shacks un­til bonafide res­i­dents were re­lo­cat­ed.Last Fri­day, no­tices from the cor­po­ra­tion were placed on 100 shacks near the seafront by po­lice.

The no­tices said the shacks were con­struct­ed with­out the coun­cil's ap­proval on State lands and the squat­ters were giv­en un­til May 29 "to show cause why such build­ing or such works should not be re­moved, al­tered or pulled down."The area is to be cleared so the coun­cil can de­vel­op the wa­ter­front area.

How­ev­er, while res­i­dents were able to breath a lit­tle eas­i­er yes­ter­day, fish­er­men were feel­ing slight­ed.Boat own­er and fish­er­man Ju­nior Gar­cia said he sub­mit­ted a copy of his fish­ing li­cence and boat reg­is­tra­tion, along with his re­sponse to the no­tice, and said fish­er­men would suf­fer if they were re­lo­cat­ed.

Gar­cia told the cor­po­ra­tion his boat was reg­is­tered for King's Wharf and it was im­por­tant for fish­er­men to live close to the sea.He said fish­er­men had nowhere to store their boats to pro­tect them from bad weath­er and thieves and they built their shacks on the wharf so they could keep a close watch on the boats.He added: "I am a boat own­er and my boat was reg­is­tered for here. If I take my boat and go out to Erin or some­where else, they will know that my boat is not for there.

"My struc­ture is here be­cause when it rains we have some­where to shel­ter."They have not fa­cil­i­tat­ed us with all these things. For the sim­ple fish­er­man or the ones who clean the fish, when peo­ple come to buy the fa­cil­i­ties aren't even de­vel­oped."If we aren't here to watch it or we leave our en­gines here–you know this world we are liv­ing in here to­day. They are rob­bing us even when we go to sell the fish. Do you know what fish­er­men go through?"

Fel­low fish­er­man Stephen Tay­lor said al­though there was an agree­ment to as­sist the res­i­dents with re­lo­ca­tion, fish­er­men should be in­clud­ed in the de­vel­op­ment of King's Wharf.He said res­i­dents were pleased now that they had a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of why the no­tices were served and the knowl­edge that their homes were not be­ing de­mol­ished.

Mar­rie Bruce said she was con­fi­dent Mu­radali would stay true to his word. Bruce, who sub­mit­ted her re­sponse on Tues­day, said she had nowhere to live and that was why she built a home on the old train­line.