Parking meters for Georgetown this year

Senior City Hall officials are pushing more aggressive rates and taxes collection and new business initiatives as mechanisms for generating more income in 2008.

Deputy Mayor and Chairman of the Council’s Finance Committee Robert Williams told Stabroek Business earlier this week that City Hall has already put in train measures to correct long-standing irregularities in several business operations in the city that have denied the Council millions of dollars in revenue over the years.

Williams explained that there are several properties that have previously been empty lots or have been serving as dwelling houses that have now been converted into business premises or storage bonds but continue to pay the residential rate of 40 per cent of the assessed value of the properties rather than the 240 per cent rate that applies in the cases of properties used for commercial purposes.

He disclosed that the Council has already assigned officers to investigate these anomalies and that the exercise will be targeting buildings that have been erected on previously empty lots, buildings that have been extended and premises that have been converted to commercial use. The exercise will target business premises on Regent street in the first instance.

While Williams has said that the regularization exercise will be undertaken through negotiations with delinquent business houses, some businessmen with whom Stabroek Business spoke said that the exercise being undertaken by the municipality may involve litigation in some cases.

Meanwhile, the introduction of parking meters in sections of the city and the ‘franchising out’ of empty lots owned by the Council are among the income-generating measures which City Hall says it will be instituting this year. Williams told Stabroek Business that the Council will shortly be placing public advertisements in the media inviting potential investors to apply for franchises to occupy and use the empty lots. He said that the Council envisaged that the lots could be used by developers to establish recreational and commercial facilities for public use. Williams said that there are approximately 15 such sites around Georgetown.

And the municipality’s Public Relations Officer Royston King has told this newspaper that plans are already in train to install parking meters in sections of the city later this year. King told Stabroek Business that the Council has already engaged an investor in discussions over the provision and servicing of the meters. He said that the meters will be installed primarily in the usually congested Stabroek area and that they will serve the twin-purpose of easing traffic congestion and garnering revenue for the Council.