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Melanie residents clash with villager over fence around old bus shed
A villager’s move to erect a fence around an old bus shed and on what is Government’s reserve has several of his neighbours crying foul.
Earlier this week, the Ministry of Public Works had ordered a roadside stall on that same plot of land on the road leading to Melanie Damishana, East Coast Demerara, to be demolished.
Residents are calling for the authority’s intervention over this illegal fence being built around this old bus shed at the Melanie Damishana access road.
The owner of the stall, which residents of Melanie Damishana said used to provide shelter from the rain and sun, decided to comply. He removed the shed adjoining his business.
On Friday, the resident, Haslyn Hooper, who lives nearby, started to erect a fence that would have taken it right along the area where the shed once stood. It would have also enclosed an old bus shed which members of the Vigalstra Housing Co-operative Society said is a landmark built dating back to the 1970’s. Melanie Damishana was established in the 1970’s by the Co-operative and was home to mainly soldiers, police ranks and civil servants.
Grayson Hooper, a son of the villager in question, on Friday, said that the family has court documents which prove that the land being fenced belongs to the family.
However, the co-operative is having none of it. It is claiming that the Hooper family had been given prescriptive rights to the land based on false claims. The co-operative members say that they will be appealing the decision, noting that it is indeed strange that the Ministry of Public Works has ordered that the stall be removed, which clearly indicates it is reserve lands. Now the villager has moved to immediately erect the fence.
“How then could this family which has illegally taken lands behind and alongside their family home then erect a fence on government’s lands?” asked an angry David Joseph, Chairman of the Vigalstra Co-operative.
According to court documents filed in 2003, the Hooper family said that they occupied the land since 1972.
However, the co-operative members say that the scheme was only built in 1974 and there were no structures on that plot of land.
In 1978, a fence was erected by the Hoopers enclosing the bus shed but was ordered to be removed by a Committee of Management for the area. In 2001, the fence was again erected and then taken down after being ordered by the Committee again.
The Committee, according to minutes of a meeting in 2008, said that claims by the Hoopers that they had given GT&T permission to build two telephone booths on the land were false since it was the committee that gave the permission.
The Co-op also claimed that checks revealed that no building plans were submitted by the Hooper family to the local Neighborhood Democratic Council and the Central Housing and Planning Authority for an adjoining beer garden that was built on the lands next to the family home.
According to the members of the co-operative, they will be watching and waiting to see if any government interventions will be forthcoming since the Ministry has acknowledged that the lands where bus sheds and roadside stalls are located are clearly reserves.
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