OPPOSITION Senator Jayanti Lutchmedial, sitting as a member of a parliamentary committee probing noise pollution, on Wednesday urged a closer look at the issue of planning approval given to sports and cultural venues which are then turned into venues for noisy fetes. The Joint Select Committee (JSC) on Local Authorities, Service Commissions and Statutory Authorities, chaired by Independent Senator Dr Varma Deyalsingh, interviewed teams led by EMA head Hayden Romano, Ministry of Planning and Development permanent secretary Marie Hinds, and the police service’s ACP Collis Hazel and ACP Sharon Cooper.
Scathing of the frequent use of the SAPA car park for noisy fetes, she hoped a new planning and development act would address the issue of planning approval for venues whose use was then adapted to hold fetes.
"I've attended numerous concerts in foreign jurisdictions and it doesn't affect neighbours because they aren't held in places where there are neighbours."
"They plan with intent." She said the ministry should be encouraging such planning with intent.
Lutchmedial then seemingly referred to SAPA.
She hit, "So you don't build a performance arts centre that's fully enclosed and then rent out the car park to throw a fete with speakers facing an old age home. That's just not heard of in developed countries.
"But it's done here and it's part of our culture.You see a big open space where you could put a tent, put speakers and put a stage (and) it's a fete venue for Carnival."
Lutchmedial said sports grounds were similarly used as fete venues, saying a cricket ground in south Trinidad was now the biggest J'ouvert venue.
"So the problem is not that someone chooses to live in the city. Places are being built in close proximity to residential areas and are then being used for purposes for which they were never intended."
She complained, "Had residents – for example in Gopaul Lands in Marabella or in Coconut Drive or in Gulf View or in Les Efforts West in San Fernando – known that SAPA or the Brian Lara Stadium were going to be fete venues, I'm sure they might have had the opportunity to object.
"All of that falls under the Town and Country Planning Division.
"That's one aspect of it I think we need to look at."
She said utterances made at the JSC about non-enforceability against house parties served to encourage non-compliance with the noise laws.
"Regardless of where you live you have to have a minimum standard of compliance with the law and you cannot create a nuisance because that is the law."
Lutchmedial lamented inefficiencies in the enforcement of anti-noise laws. "The EMA could test but they can't enforce; the police could enforce but they don't have enough of the equipment (that is noise meters) and training to do the testing."
She said a lack of synergy between agencies and poor distribution of resources resulted in a lack of enforcement against noise pollution, to the chagrin of citizens.
Referring to the venue of the JSC meeting at Cabildo Chambers in Port of Spain, she said, "If yo
