Dear Editor,
Every day, I see President Ali, featured in a BBC commercial, wagging his fingers and vociferously declaring, “I will lecture you on climate change!” I understand that he is the holder of a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of the West Indies and may be aware of the issues presented in this letter. Nonetheless, it is with great deference that I write to draw attention to an ecological issue that Guyana will confront.
I grew up in a Guyana which tall structures could be counted on one’s fingers; the Saint George’s Cathedral, the Stabroek Market Clock Tower, Fogarty’s Department Store, Pegasus Hotel and the Bank of Guyana were our “skyscrapers.” With our newfound prosperity tall buildings are popping up around Georgetown and will probably proliferate over the rest of Guyana. In our frenzy of building, we must enact and enforce laws and codes to preserve/enhance our quality of life.
This weekend, I spent a wonderful time at the beach located at the Miami-Dade and Broward county-line. My host was an architect with a keen sense of design and its effects on the environment. During our evening conversation, she told me that even on a hot day the beach is always cool because of the winds. She went on to elaborate that the tall perpendicular buildings on the beach-front block the salubrious sea breeze and weather from reaching inland communities behind the narrow strip of luxury condominiums and hotels that ribbons the Florida Atlantic coast.
The deleterious effects of building tall skyscrapers along the coast are two-fold. First, the skyscrapers block the cool sea breeze, and the inland communities experience a noticeable rise in temperature which affects the quality of life for humans, animals, plants and insects. And second, when the cool ocean breeze collides with the tall buildings on the beach, it has nowhere to go but back to the sea. This creates an air current that constantly erodes the beach and creates a sand bar some miles out on ocean.
My architect host pointed out the Miami-Dade County side of the border where the homes of the ultra-rich live [Madonna, Tommy Hilfiger, Satya Nadella, etc.] the buildings were not taller than the tallest coconut tree. It was her professional judgment that a height restriction of building on the beach served 2 purposes: the inland communities will enjoy some of the cool sea breeze and the soil erosion on the beach will be somewhat mitigated. As we begin to develop our “seawall” we must be cognizant of the effects it will have on the quality of life for the inland residents of Georgetown.
As we remake Georgetown and the rest of Guyana, let us be prudent: a height restriction for new construction along the coastline may be something for Guyana to consider. A quality of life must not be restricted to the emergence of a luxury beachfront condo/hotel clientele along our Atlantic coast.
Sincerely,
Roger Ally
Fort Lauderdale