President David Granger has asked the Georgetown City Council to provide suitable accommodation for vendors as part of clearly planned development.
Speaking at a special statutory meeting at City Hall on Monday, the president suggested that the “council develop a much clearer vision and a much more profound sense of mission.”
Though he stressed that he was not giving the council instructions, the president noted that in March when the present council was elected, Georgetown had been “desecrated by indifference… desperately needed renewal.”
According to President Granger, he “would like to see during the tenure of office of this Coalition Government, every vendor under a roof.”
“Vending is a legitimate economic activity and I’d like the City Council, [which] I know has tried in the past, but let us find suitable places where vendors could be protected from the elements, but still have access to their customers. There is no need, decade after decade, for poor citizens who are trying to make a living, [to] be exposed to the elements… Let us see what could be done to expand and extend markets and give those poor vendors roofs over their heads,” he said.
In response to the President’s call the M&CC yesterday declared that they are “in the process of formulating relevant ideas” so as to provide “municipal roofs” to vendors. In a press statement, M&CC said that the President had emphasized a vision already held by the Council which is “to find suitable and economically viable location(s) for these persons to conduct their trade.”
The council has therefore been urged by Town Clerk Royston King to meet this vision.
Presently, relocated street vendors can be found at “Parliament View Mall” and Merriman Mall, temporary locations where they are housed under tents.
Vendors housed at the Parliament View Mall have suffered losses due to flooding and have complained of loss of sales as customers have been unwilling to visit the location.
According to city hall, “the Council is working toward correcting the over-topping that occurs at Parliament View Mall during rainfall.”
Even as the council now embarks on the formation of a vending policy the president in his address reminded that “there are several plans and proposals and studies” on how to improve the city “which unfortunately have been gathering dust for the last 15 or 20 years”
Suggesting that councillors might want to familiarise themselves with those studies so that their future actions could be guided by past research, the president stressed that “Georgetown must be a planned city.”
“We must reconsider the prospects of zoning and bring an end to the chaotic developments, which characterized earlier times,” he said.
He further explained that “any urban plan (produced) will not exist in a vacuum. The plan must not only be based on knowledge of what is required in the city, but it must also aim at collaboration, with the Central Government, with the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA) and certainly with the Ministry of Communities, so that we work together because this is a national capital.”
To that end he has suggested that a ‘National Capital Planning Commission’ be established to “review the numerous plans, which have been prepared over the years and to develop on your own, and in your own wisdom, a structured approach to urban renewal.”
Even as he thanked the council for the work they have done in the last 13 months the president has also called for attention to be paid to issues of zoning, security and sanitation and though he did not mention the parking meter contract which has been engaging the attention of the council he has called for a better approach to the management of traffic in the city.
“I encourage the City Council to look at pedestrian crossings, so that physically challenged citizens are not in fear of their lives every time they try to move from one pavement to the next. Let us have bus and taxi terminals, parking lots to curb the traffic congestion, but particularly to protect pedestrians who sometimes have to compete with dray-carts, animals, motor cycles, piles of sand, debris, building waste and traffic in order to go about their business in the city”, he said.
