It was All Fools Day when it came to public attention that the section of Merriman Mall between Albert and Light Streets was being converted into a car park. Anyone who hoped that this was an April Fool’s joke, however, was to be disappointed. Despite all the patter from politicians about a green economy and the need to promote a green environment, Georgetowners are afflicted by a City Council which has no sense of aesthetics, no sense of history, no sense of the appropriate use of space and no sense of the democratic imperative to consult residents. If there is anything at all to be said in favour of this perverse decision to allow a casino, no less, to create a car park in one of the city’s few open spaces, it is the fact that it was not characterised by the usual political dissension: both APNU and PPP/C councillors voted in favour of it.
Older residents will remember the days when Merriman Mall up to Bourda Market was an area where residents could walk or relax, and children had a safe playing space. A few years ago the section between Albert and Light Streets was being restored as a place where young children could play, but at this stage the Sleepin Hotel has put paid to any such further designs. Church Street and North Road always had a kind of elegance about them; the buildings were of a not too dissimilar height, and standing at the end of the Mall where colourful canna lilies were planted, the eye could travel all the way up to the Anglican cathedral rising majestically from the earth, its roof glinting in the sunlight. If nothing else, an unappealing building housing a cambio has degraded that whole ambience.
When proprietor Mr Clifton Bacchus was given permission to build the Sleepin Hotel in Church Street, it was on the understanding from a previous PPP/C government that he would get a casino licence. The Gaming Authority under the Coalition government did not grant the licence, but that decision has been reversed now that the PPP/C has been returned to office. Licence or no, this was no place to build a hotel in the first instance, more especially since no arrangements were included in the original plans for parking. This was quite scandalous, more especially considering that other major hotels, such as the Marriott and the Princess were required to do so, as letter-writer Mr Eric Phillips pointed out as long ago as 2016.
It is not as if residents in the local area had been consulted about the building of the hotel either, in addition to which they told this newspaper five years ago that they only knew about the proposed casino when they read about it in the newspapers. “This tragedy has been forced on us,” one resident commented.
At the time, former Chief Magistrate Kalam Juman-Yassin in a letter to this newspaper also raised the issue of a casino being opened in a residential area. He also pointed out the additional unsuitability of the location in that four buildings east of the hotel (which was then under construction) was the Seventh Day Adventist Church, while two hundred yards away was the Queenstown Mosque. A casino, he said, would among other things create a “parking nightmare, and a great deal of inconvenience to the residents of that neighbourhood.” The residents to whom the Stabroek News spoke were in complete agreement. “I don’t know what can be done at this stage, but as a resident who has lived here for over 40 years, I am asking government to rethink the casino deal. Do it for us the taxpaying residents…” an elderly homeowner was quoted as saying.
Mr Juman-Yassin called for the government to “stop this tragedy from occurring,” and while as mentioned above it was delayed for five years, the present administration has demonstrated its contempt both for local residents and the character of the area. Perhaps that is not unexpected since the project had had the backing of the Ramotar administration, one resident remarking that you could not say anything “because you saw the big ones at the site … so who can you complain to? It was in their interest so nothing could have happened.”
It may be that the proprietor of Sleepin intended to create parking space by acquiring neighbouring properties. This newspaper had been told that homeowners between the Light and Albert Streets block had been approached to sell their homes. One owner said she had rejected the offer because it was a family property and it was not about the money. As it is we have now landed in the position which everyone predicted, with parking chaos in the area, especially in the evenings and at night. As one resident observed a few years ago, “The whole question about parking to this so-called casino can’t be answered. We heard, when the last government was in [PPP/C], that parking would be on the Merriman Mall, but that has been shot down because government don’t control the Mall.” So was the PPP/C government’s intention all along to have parking on the Mall, and that if there was sufficient congestion the City Council would agree?
Whatever the case, the City Council has caved in. Former Mayor Hamilton Green writing to this newspaper recently said that both the Central Housing and Planning Authority and the municipality in the past “agreed that developers in the city who are establishing businesses that will require staff and customer parking should provide on-site parking, including as happened elsewhere, a floor dedicated for the parking of their vehicles.” It might be remarked in support of this, that even quite modest buildings in other cities that are being erected from scratch, cater for parking underground, if not on some other floor. But then we are not favoured with authorities who are endowed with even plain old common sense, never mind a feeling for the environment.
What role the City Engineer’s Department played in approving the permit for this hotel/casino is not known, but the government clearly wanted the project. The filling up of open spaces irrespective of the surroundings or context is something which is not unknown to Freedom House. There were some early proposals to build on the green area dividing Homestretch Avenue and Lodge, for example, but these were abandoned, at least partly because, one suspects, that none other than Mrs Janet Jagan raised public objections. They also have little sense for what is appropriate in a setting, since the Sleepin, whose indifferent exterior aside, is too high for the environmental harmony of that particular location.
While the great city centres of the world are moving in the direction of trying to create more green spaces in their urban sprawls, Georgetown seems intent on going backwards, and filling up the limited number it has already with man-made structures. Unfortunately there is no reversing the Council decision which has been taken in relation to the Mall, because according to Mr Bacchus he has already made payment of $1.3 million for a one-year period, in addition to which he has begun preparatory works. He is reported as saying that he intends to equip the area with solar lights and beautify it in other ways. The citizens of this city wait to see what he means by beautification, and whether it entails anything involving the plant world which would allow for some very small mitigation of this travesty.
