Plan­ning Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is is re­fut­ing claims by for­mer hous­ing min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal that the PNM ap­proved and built Green­vale Park hous­ing de­vel­op­ments on the flood­plains of the Ca­roni Riv­er when Dr Kei­th Row­ley was hous­ing min­is­ter.

In­stead, she said de­signs and draw­ings were done un­der the PNM and an ap­pli­ca­tion was made but it was nev­er ap­proved by the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning so the project was stalled and lat­er built un­der the PP when Mooni­lal was min­is­ter.

Both Robin­son-Reg­is and Mooni­lal were speak­ing on the CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew on Fri­day.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view, Mooni­lal said the de­vel­op­ment was con­cep­tu­al­ized in 2006 and fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of de­sign works, con­struc­tion start­ed in 2008. He said when the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship took of­fice there were al­ready 557 units on the ground.

“Two con­trac­tors con­struct­ed Green­vale and in 2010, one con­trac­tor was 90 per cent fin­ished and the oth­er was 40 per cent. Be­tween 2005 and 2010 that gov­ern­ment was build­ing hous­es like Legoland. There was no waste-wa­ter treat­ment plants, no prop­er roads and bad in­fra­struc­ture. We had to rec­ti­fy that,” Mooni­lal said.

He not­ed that his gov­ern­ment built re­ten­tion ponds, fixed flood pumps and cleared rivers to mit­i­gate flood­ing but un­der the Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion none of this was con­tin­ued. Mooni­lal said there was ex­ten­sive rain­fall be­tween 2010 and 2015, but Green­vale res­i­dents were nev­er flood­ed be­cause of the reg­u­lar main­te­nance was done.

Re­spond­ing to Mooni­lal’s claims, Robin­son-Reg­is de­nied that the Green­vale Es­tate was ap­proved un­der the Patrick Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion while Row­ley was the hous­ing min­is­ter.

“We have gone through our files and found there was an ap­pli­ca­tion in 2000 and a re­fusal on May 31, 2000, from Town and Coun­try. She said the ap­pli­ca­tion made by the Na­tion­al Hous­ing Au­thor­i­ty was re­ject­ed be­cause the site falls in an area where un­der plan­ning pol­i­cy the lands were iden­ti­fied for agri­cul­tur­al pur­pos­es. It was al­so re­ject­ed be­cause the site fell un­der the flood­plain of the Ca­roni riv­er and was sub­ject to flood­ing while the draft East-West land roof placid­i­ty plan iden­ti­fied the site for open space.

Robin­son-Reg­is said in 2000 Town and Coun­try re­ceived a memo from NHA ask­ing for fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the site and T&C re­spond­ed that the “site was al­lo­cat­ed for agri­cul­ture use un­der plan­ning pol­i­cy, the site was for­est or land space pro­tec­tion on Hal­crow East-west cor­ri­dor land use placid­i­ty plan.”

“In 2011, we have on file that the Drainage Di­vi­sion high­light­ed that the de­vel­op­ment would be with­in the flood­plain of Ca­roni riv­er. In 2013, there was an­oth­er ap­pli­ca­tion that was with­drawn and in 2014, an ap­pli­ca­tion was sub­mit­ted and ap­proved by the then di­rec­tor of Town and Coun­try Plan­ning and the site was giv­en per­mis­sion in 2014. All along it had not been ap­proved and in 2014 it was grant­ed per­mis­sion un­der the UNC,” she added.

She re­it­er­at­ed, “Green­vale was not ap­proved un­der Man­ning. There were a num­ber of de­signs put for­ward but no ap­proval was giv­en un­til 2014.”

She al­so said that in­stead of try­ing to im­pli­cate the sit­ting Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Mooni­lal should seek to help Green­vale res­i­dents.