Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Res­i­dents of Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) apart­ments along Nel­son and George Streets in Port-of-Spain say the lack of gov­ern­ment sup­port to re­pair their units has left them doubt­ful about who will tru­ly ben­e­fit from up­com­ing re­gen­er­a­tion plans.

“I don’t think they will try to meet our needs, be­cause right now we’re at this state and they’re not do­ing any­thing. So when it comes to the re­gen­er­a­tion, it looks like they just want to get us out,” said res­i­dent Nike­da Drakes.

On Thurs­day at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John un­veiled the gov­ern­ment’s Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print, de­tail­ing 129 projects across T&T, in­clud­ing the re­de­vel­op­ment of East Port-of-Spain.

The plan, ex­pect­ed to com­mence as ear­ly as Au­gust 2026, in­cludes build­ing 1,200 mul­ti-storey res­i­den­tial units, con­struct­ing a pow­er and waste ser­vices fa­cil­i­ty, re­vi­tal­is­ing the his­toric Ja­ma Masjid Mosque, and re­gen­er­at­ing 28 acres of di­lap­i­dat­ed hous­ing from Nel­son to George Streets.

Res­i­dents told Guardian Me­dia that many apart­ments need ur­gent up­grades, par­tic­u­lar­ly roof­ing and elec­tri­cal sys­tems. Ob­ser­va­tions re­vealed that some top-floor unit own­ers had in­stalled their own roof­ing to pre­vent leaks, yet prob­lems per­sist. Ten­ants said they have lodged re­peat­ed com­plaints with the HDC, but lit­tle ac­tion has been tak­en.

Based on these ex­pe­ri­ences, many res­i­dents, in­clud­ing Drakes, re­main scep­ti­cal about the gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tions.

“Most like­ly it will not be us; it will be one or two of us who could af­ford it,” she said.

How­ev­er, res­i­dents ex­pressed a will­ing­ness to par­tic­i­pate in con­sul­ta­tions, be­liev­ing their com­mu­ni­ty and apart­ments re­quire gen­uine im­prove­ment.

When asked about gen­tri­fi­ca­tion dur­ing a post-launch in­ter­view, Min­is­ter John ac­knowl­edged the chal­lenge, say­ing she in­tends to work with the com­mu­ni­ty.

“They need to find a way to make the res­i­dents feel se­cure. It has to be a give and take in up­grad­ing the build­ings. Of course, there will be peo­ple who will not be able to pay, and this may dis­place some,” said res­i­dent Na­tal­ie Drakes. She al­so urged the gov­ern­ment to hire skilled work­ers from the area to en­sure the project ben­e­fits lo­cal res­i­dents while ad­dress­ing is­sues with il­le­gal ten­ants.

“We have cer­ti­fied elec­tri­cians, plumbers, and oth­er skilled peo­ple who can ac­tu­al­ly work. This is how we help each oth­er right here,” she said.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, 29, who wished to re­main anony­mous, said re­fur­bish­ment should ex­tend be­yond re­pair­ing build­ings, call­ing for broad­er com­mu­ni­ty im­prove­ments to make the area more con­ducive for fam­i­ly life.

Res­i­dents stressed they would wel­come re­gen­er­a­tion, pro­vid­ed they are treat­ed fair­ly through­out the process. They re­called the ini­tia­tive Colour Me Or­ange, orig­i­nal­ly launched un­der the UNC and re­vived in 2011, as an ex­am­ple of plans that nev­er ful­ly ma­te­ri­alised.

For now, res­i­dents re­main cau­tious­ly op­ti­mistic as they await gov­ern­ment con­sul­ta­tions and the start of the re­gen­er­a­tion pro­gramme.

Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John did not re­spond to nu­mer­ous calls for com­ment.