Sun | May 12, 2024

St Lucia-registered company didn’t get approval for Tavistock project

Published:Thursday | June 15, 2023 | 1:56 AMKimone Francis/Senior Staff Reporter
Dennis Hall from the City Engineering Department watches closely as workmen from KNN Construction clear Tavistock Terrace yesterday. The roadway was blocked after workmen cutting a road to enter a property encountered difficulties that caused a landslide.
Kenyon Hemans
Dennis Hall from the City Engineering Department watches closely as workmen from KNN Construction clear Tavistock Terrace yesterday. The roadway was blocked after workmen cutting a road to enter a property encountered difficulties that caused a landslide.

A COMPANY registered in Castries, St Lucia, is behind work being done for a proposed housing development on Tavistock Terrace in Jack’s Hill, which caused the collapse of a hillside in the affluent St Andrew community last week.

The company, CONNECT 4 INC, has proposed the construction of a multifamily development at Lot 488 Barbican Heights, Tavistock Terrace, a development application listed on the website of the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) shows.

The application was submitted a year ago on June 10, but its status is listed as processing.

Still, work began to clear the land, acquired by the company in 2005, despite no permit being granted by the KSAMC.

Additionally, a copy of the land title obtained by The Gleaner indicates that “no building of any kind other than a private dwelling” must be erected on the lot.

In a media release yesterday, the KSAMC said that the local authority issued “a cease and desist order to the developer deemed to have caused the recent blockage that has impeded access to a section of Tavistock Terrace” on Monday.

It said that no building or planning approval had been granted for the proposed development and that its inspectors confirmed that no construction had taken place.

“The debris blocking the roadway is the result of bore hole tests that were conducted by the developer,” the release said.

“The KSAMC has, however, instructed the developer that all activity on the site must be stopped immediately, apart from clearing the road, pending further decisions from the corporation,” it added.

KSAMC aware of landslide

In a Gleaner interview yesterday, city engineer at the KSAMC Xavier Chevannes said that the corporation had been made aware of the landslide over the weekend.

He said that the developer was attempting to create an “access road to enter the top of the property” to conduct a bore hole test when a section collapsed.

Yesterday, The Gleaner reported that residents were concerned that the increase in housing developments in the upper St Andrew community, which has contributed to the destruction of infrastructure, was posing a danger to individual houses.

There are currently four proposed or ongoing developments for multifamily dwellings taking place in the community.

A government legislator, developers Tariq Malik, and Kirk Holbrooke are behind the other three developments.