This article gives some interesting history about the Guave Road farmers in Chaguaramas. Take a read folks.
Tucker Valley plans revealed
By Yvonne Baboolal (T&T Guardian)
Sunday 1st july, 2007Government plans to build beachfront houses, to a value of $400 million, on a triangle of land at Guave Road, Tucker Valley, in Chaguaramas, president of the Guave Road Farmers Association, Joseph Richardson said Friday.
Richardson said the Housing Development Corporation is using the same tactics in Bagatelle that it used on Chaguaramas farmers when they sought to move them off the land in 2005.
Government has ordered Bagatelle residents to vacate the area to make way for a sporting complex. Bagatelle residents have charged, however, that Government has a bigger project in mind for the area, including a major housing development.
Richardson said Guave Road farmers, once supporters of Housing Minister Dr Keith Rowley, their MP, have now become activists against the Government.
Houses for Guave Road Recalling the Chaguaramas issue, he said a National Housing Authority (NHA), now the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) plan, dated February 5, 2006 revealed a “conceptual layout” for a multi-family housing project in Guave Road.
The plan was submitted to the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) last year for a Certificate of Environmental Clearance (CEC).
Its shows the development of over 40 acres of land in Chaguaramas, bordered by Guave Road, referred to as Tucker Valley Road in the plan, Macqueripe and the Western Main Road.
The housing project will comprise townhouses and single family units. The NHA plan also shows a nursery school, an area for community use and open spaces.
Noel Garcia, managing director of the HDC, was appointed chairman of the Chaguaramas Development Authority (CDA) in early 2006.
On October 6 last year, the HDC held a public consultation with Guave Road farmers at the Carenage Community Complex on its housing plan for the area.
HDC’s Michelle Mischier-Boyd told the farmers of a critical housing shortage in T&T and that the Government had embarked on a housing programme unmatched in the hemisphere.
Paul Thompson of Conrad Douglas and Associates, project manager for the Chaguaramas development, said the EMA wanted an Environmental Impact Assessment done before it could issue a certificate for the project to proceed.
Thompson said the HDC had applied for a CEC on June 13, 2005.
But Richardson said environmentalists and even former CDA manager, Ian Gianetti, who was present, openly expressed their objection to the housing plan.
They cited increased traffic, a water shortage, environmental issues and duress to farmers as some of the reasons.
Richardson claimed that last year there was an attempt to burn the hills of Tucker Valley during the dry season to allegedly clear the land. But he said the rain saved the day and the fire did not spread very far.
The area, deemed environmentally sensitive wetlands, has been cultivated by 71 farmers since 1951, most of whom come from Carenage, L’Anse Mitan, Diego Martin, Point Cumana and Laventille.
A notice appeared in the newspapers in 2005 from the CDA ordering farmers off the land within 21 days for the construction of a sporting facility.
Richardson said, however, they later discovered that the Ministry of Housing was really behind the notice and there were plans for a major housing development in the area.
“Just like Bagatelle,” he noted.
He said farmers were maintaining their stance that they were not moving from the area.
He said in March last year, Housing Minister Dr Keith Rowley met with the farmers during a walkabout in the area.
“Just like Bagatelle, he promised that they would look at relocating us in an area further down Chaguaramas but nobody took him on.”
“Just a little six months again and Rowley will be out,” he speculated.
Richardson, in his 40s now, said he began planting the land with his mother at age 12. He and his 19-year-old son now cultivate four acres in Guave Road.
“This year we have mostly ochroes and pumpkin,” he said.
Richardson said Guave Road farmers sell their vegetables at the lowest price because they don’t have to put out any money for irrigation.
“We plant the wetlands in the dry season and there’s water all the time.
“When everybody else is selling ochroes at four for $1 we sell it at 50 for $10.”
His farmers sell the produce within their communities and to supermarkets.
Clyde Nicholas, in his 80s, boasts of being the first farmer in Guave Road. He said he has been planting food crops in the area for 50 years.
Not for sale At a farmers’ meeting at the Carenage Recreation Ground last year, Nicholas said he always voted for Rowley but that the Minister was “now overplaying his authority.”
“You could see the arrogance,” he said.“Now they want to throw you out to build houses.”
Another Guave Road farmer, David St Clair, during a farmers’ forum at the Learning Resource Centre in Couva in July last year, called on Agriculture Minister Jarette Narine to step down.
St Clair objected to the HDC’s plans to use “grade A” agricultural lands for housing.
“While I agree that we need housing, we can’t eat bricks. We need food to sustain us. The matter is very simple. It’s a political problem,” he said.
Richardson recalled that in 1999 under the UNC government, a tripartite committee, comprising the CDA, the Agriculture Ministry and the farmers was set up to look into the agricultural aspect of the matter.
“The land was surveyed and plotted out and all the farmers were allocated designated plots.
“We were in the process of being regularised but we never really looked for certificates of comfort because we knew that we could never own the land,” the farmer said.
Tracing the history of the land, he said it once belonged to the Huggins family who had bought it from the Tuckers, who were plantation owners.
Richardson said his mother, Nelcia Richardson, and other Carenage residents, cultivated parcels of land but when World War II started, they were forced to abandon the gardens when the land was leased to the Americans.
“The American soldiers used to buy vegetables from the farmers’ shed in Chaguaramas,” he recalled.
“The soldiers eventually allowed the farmers to go back to their gardens but some of them used to be so scared, they used to pass over the hill from Carenage to get to the land.”
Richardson said in 1976, the Government got back Chaguaramas from the Americans and the CDA was established to govern the area with its own laws and security.
“Dr Eric Williams, PNM prime minister at the time, received Chaguaramas on behalf of the people of T&T. This meant the land there could not be sold. It was for all to enjoy and none to own.
“That’s why the CDA made it into a national park.”
He questioned the legality of the Housing Ministry’s plans for the area.
“When they build houses, are they going to give people leases for the land. Will the people never be able to own them?” he asked.