Gov­ern­ment has be­gun plans to re­vi­talise ur­ban spaces in T&T.

In a state­ment the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment said projects will be de­vel­oped us­ing pub­lic pri­vate part­ner­ships, adding that some of the pro­posed sites in­clude The Memo­r­i­al Plaza Project, Sal­va­tori Build­ing Project, Pic­cadil­ly De­vel­op­ment Project, The Fore­shore Green Park De­vel­op­ment, City Gate De­vel­op­ment and Colville Street De­vel­op­ment – The Pow­er­Gen Site.

The min­istry said this is in keep­ing with one of its key bud­get items for 2021.

It added it work with UDe­COTT “ to cre­ate a re­birth” of the cap­i­tal through col­lab­o­ra­tion and im­ple­men­ta­tion of poli­cies and plans to recog­nise the his­tor­i­cal dis­trict in which the Red House is lo­cat­ed as well as re­de­vel­op­ment of the com­mer­cial cen­tre through mixed use de­vel­op­ment of res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial in­fra­struc­ture, pedes­tri­an­ized ar­eas, smart tech­nol­o­gy and re­new­able en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture.

This, the min­istry added, will al­so im­prove lo­cal eco­nom­ic vi­a­bil­i­ty and pro­vide a qual­i­ty en­vi­ron­ment for tourists and res­i­dents.

The Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion (TCPD) will al­so play a key role in de­vel­op­ing these plans which will have sig­nif­i­cant ef­fects on the land use pol­i­cy and de­vel­op­ment stan­dards for Port-of-Spain, the min­istry said.

It said the TCPD is cur­rent­ly ad­dress­ing con­cerns of de­vel­op­ers and ap­pli­cants for plan­ning per­mis­sion.

“Of par­tic­u­lar con­cern are build­ing cov­er­age, site cov­er­age, build­ing height, and ur­ban den­si­ty. This will en­tail re-zon­ing ar­eas in Port-of-Spain to ac­com­mo­date the de­mands of a grow­ing city,” the min­istry said.

It added pro­pos­als are al­so be­ing con­sid­ered for the cur­rent al­lowances of up to six floors in mid­town and down­town Port-of- Spain to be in­creased, fa­cil­i­tat­ing more com­pact de­vel­op­ment and al­low­ing for more in­clu­sion of ver­ti­cal spaces.

“The TCPD in­tends to sim­pli­fy the adop­tion and adap­ta­tion of smarter plan­ning par­a­digms to en­cour­age res­i­den­tial, com­mer­cial, cul­tur­al and fi­nan­cial de­vel­op­ment in the city and its sub­urbs.

“In keep­ing with smart growth prin­ci­ples, the TCPD is pur­su­ing com­pact neigh­bour­hood de­sign – es­pe­cial­ly crit­i­cal where land is lim­it­ed,” the min­istry said.

It added this al­so in­volves more struc­tured ver­ti­cal park­ing to re­place sur­face park­ing.

In ad­di­tion, the TCPD will ac­com­mo­date de­signs fa­cil­i­tat­ing more “walk­a­ble” neigh­bour­hoods and the use of bi­cy­cles – hence pro­mot­ing ac­tive and healthy lifestyles, clean­er air and plan­ning for peo­ple rather than for ve­hi­cles, the min­istry added.