Over­grown Lot Rais­es Safe­ty Con­cerns

Res­i­dents of Tigris Dri­ve, Eden Gar­dens, Bal­main, Cou­va, and the HDC hous­ing de­vel­op­ment at Cal­cut­ta Road No. 2 are hop­ing au­thor­i­ties will ad­dress long-stand­ing prob­lems with an over­grown va­cant lot.

The par­cel at Tigris Dri­ve was ear­marked for a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre and play­ground, but res­i­dents say the grass and bush­es have been al­lowed to grow unchecked for sev­er­al years.

They fear the over­grown veg­e­ta­tion could pro­vide cov­er for crim­i­nals and has be­come a breed­ing ground for ver­min, in­clud­ing rats and snakes.

Res­i­dents al­so com­plained that the veg­e­ta­tion has spread to­wards the road­way, cre­at­ing an ob­struc­tion and mak­ing the area dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate.

Car­la George, 41, who moved from Diego Mar­tin to Eden Gar­dens in 2019, said res­i­dents had writ­ten to the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) seek­ing as­sis­tance.

George said res­i­dents had not ap­proached their Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Cou­va South or the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (CT­TRC), in­stead di­rect­ing their com­plaints to the HDC.

Ar­lene Solomon-Rames­sar, the CT­TRC’s lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Cou­va East/Bal­main, told Guardian Me­dia she would seek to have the grass cut with­in the next two weeks.

Solomon-Rames­sar said she was un­aware res­i­dents were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing prob­lems with the lot and had not been in­formed of the sit­u­a­tion by mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty.

CT­TRC chair­man Ryan Ram­per­sad al­so told Guardian Me­dia he would look in­to the mat­ter.

Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee said he too planned to in­ves­ti­gate the res­i­dents’ con­cerns.

How­ev­er, some res­i­dents said they had al­so sought as­sis­tance from oth­er agen­cies.

One res­i­dent claimed com­plaints had been made to the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion. The area, how­ev­er, falls un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of the CT­TRC.

Res­i­dents are now hop­ing the HDC, re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion and their lo­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives will work to­geth­er to clear the lot and ad­dress their safe­ty con­cerns.

They al­so want au­thor­i­ties to re­vis­it plans for the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre and play­ground, which they say would pro­vide much-need­ed recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties for res­i­dents and chil­dren in the area.