The Thursday April 25 launching ceremony of the National Planning and Programme Unit was a pretty blasé affair, with the regular technocrats in attendance, applauding in sync the quirky one-liners of the various somewhat self-conscious suits. And while the Castries Vision 2030 video report had attendees daring to hope of a brighter future, what was particularly noteworthy was Prime Minister Allen Chastanet’s poignant reflection on the city’s past, and warning against repetition of the mistakes made.
“This project here today is about centralizing the management of our infrastructure,” said the PM. “And so I have also to take into consideration what is it we consider to be the long-term development plan for the country.”
Long-term planning would be the running theme throughout Chastanet’s address. Turning his focus on the capital, he said, “Let’s look at Castries. Why is it in the state that it’s in? How do I know that we got it wrong? And how should you know that we got it wrong?”
Citing a few examples of poor planning in the city, the PM raised the issue of the CDC apartments. “The CDCs were a temporary housing development. That’s what it was described as. Temporary! It was completed in 1955. And here we are in 2019 and we still don’t have a clear idea as to where we want to go with that development. Or with Castries.”
He continued: “I have not met the person that can definitively tell me they have a clear idea as to what we’re going do with Castries. There is still a tremendous amount of debate.”
Citing another consequence of poor planning, Chastanet asked: “How is it that we have a statistic that says that 60 per cent of the treated water we have is lost. 60 per cent! Not of water coming from the dam but treated water. And it’s literally going to waste. Where has been the sense of urgency?”
Pointe Seraphine did not escape the PM’s focus. Calling to mind its establishment, he said: “I happened to be on the board of Pointe Seraphine when it first opened and I knew that we had it wrong then. How? A valuable piece of land that’s dedicated to the cruise industry means that after 4.30 in the afternoon it is empty. It is empty; in summertime.”
Chastanet would later state: “I’m intolerant of mediocrity. Castries is screaming out for help.” It turns out the PM has already made moves to help improve Saint Lucia’s hitherto “mediocre” planning, as he went on to explain the rationale behind the decision to establish the Development Control Authority (DCA) as a separate statutory body.
In his telling: “We saw a huge problem in the Ministry of Physical Planning and that it was undertaking two activities. One is the longer-term planning and policy process, the other is the regulatory side of planning which comes under the DCA. And they were trying to co-exist in the same space. Therefore there was a conflict. And to my mind there was an over-prioritization on the DCA role and less of a prioritization on the longer-term planning. Therefore the decision has been made, through the assistance of UNOPS, to make a separation between those two entities and so the DCA actually will now become a statutory body by itself and be responsible for the processing of approval applications. But those approvals will be based on the policy positions that the Ministry of Planning will be developing.”
