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Friday, February 28, 2025

Cedros residents mobilising to stop developer

by

Radhica De Silva
2159 days ago
20190401
Land development at Trestrail Estate at Granville, Cedros.

Land development at Trestrail Estate at Granville, Cedros.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Works are con­tin­u­ing in the Tre­strail Es­tate at Granville Vil­lage, Ce­dros, fol­low­ing re­ports that a land de­vel­op­er had blocked wa­ter­cours­es and bull­dozed forests in the penin­su­la.

This fol­lows an ex­clu­sive Guardian Me­dia re­port on Mon­day which showed that the ex­ca­va­tion of 64 acres of for­est land near the Granville Beach had posed se­ri­ous risks to the Granville ceme­tery and the aquifer.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view on Mon­day, landown­er Vin­cent Ram­per­sad said res­i­dents were now mo­bil­is­ing to take le­gal ac­tion against the de­vel­op­er.

“This sto­ry has opened a Pan­do­ra’s box. Peo­ple who owned land here but did not know what was hap­pen­ing, are now com­ing to see if their lands have been en­croached,” Ram­per­sad said.

He added that a com­pre­hen­sive as­sess­ment will be done over the next few days. The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty has al­so ini­ti­at­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the project. Ram­per­sad said it ap­peared as if work on the site had stopped.

Chair­man of the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh said the cor­po­ra­tion had the pow­er to is­sue work stop no­tices to the de­vel­op­er once it is found that he had con­tra­vened stip­u­lat­ed guide­lines.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment as to whether they had stopped work on the site, Anand Go­sine, nephew of land de­vel­op­er Deo Go­sine, said works were con­tin­u­ing.

“Why will we stop work? We have a Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal clear­ance from the EMA,” Go­sine said.

He not­ed that they were plan­ning a meet­ing with the com­mu­ni­ty to dis­cuss their con­cerns. He said the de­vel­op­er was will­ing to meet with the cor­po­ra­tion and im­ple­ment rec­om­men­da­tions.

Coun­cil­lor for Ce­dros Shankar Teelucks­ingh said the de­vel­op­er could face charges if in­ves­ti­ga­tions proved the de­vel­op­er had flout­ed en­vi­ron­men­tal laws and failed to heed the rec­om­men­da­tions from the EMA, cor­po­ra­tion and Town and Coun­try Plan­ning.

“Based on in­ves­ti­ga­tions from the build­ing en­gi­neer we will have to see what is the ap­proved drainage plan from Town and Coun­try. We await rec­om­men­da­tions from the EMA be­fore we give fi­nal ap­proval. So far, no ap­proved doc­u­ments have been sub­mit­ted to the cor­po­ra­tion,” Teelucks­ingh claimed.

The EMA has con­firmed that the CEC was grant­ed for the de­vel­op­ment of 64.49 acres of land at Coro­man­del Road, Granville Beach, Ce­dros.

Say­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions were now on­go­ing to de­ter­mine whether there were any breach­es, the EMA said it had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty un­der Sec­tion 37 of the EMA Act, to mon­i­tor the per­for­mance of any ac­tiv­i­ty to en­sure com­pli­ance with any con­di­tions in the cer­tifi­cate.”

“To this end, the Au­thor­i­ty has mon­i­tored the spe­cif­ic ac­tiv­i­ty via meet­ings, site vis­its and pe­ri­od­ic re­ports,” the au­thor­i­ty said.

Be­tween June and No­vem­ber 2018, the EMA said it con­duct­ed site vis­its and met with the de­vel­op­er and was ad­vised that all works had ceased in Au­gust 2018.

The EMA said it will con­tin­ue to ac­tive­ly mon­i­tor all works at this de­vel­op­ment site, to en­sure com­pli­ance with the terms and con­di­tions of the cer­tifi­cate.

“This in­cludes the mon­i­tor­ing of mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures for en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pacts to near­by re­cep­tors,” the EMA added.


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