A FIRE AND A ROBBERY

Oct 14, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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This week, a recent fire at a business bond spread beyond the boundaries of the bond and engulfed a private residence. This week also, a businessman was gunned down at his shop in Hampshire, Corentyne which is also a predominantly business community.
These two incidents raise questions- once again and for the umpteenth time- about the need for effective zoning. In the case of the fire, questions were raised about the response of the fire service and the suitability of locating a large bond in a residential area. In respect to the robbery, questions were raised about the response from the police outpost located half a mile away.
Apart from Georgetown, the bulk of Guyana’s population is spread thinly along a lengthy and narrow coastal belt. It is impossible for both the police and the fire service to have a presence in every single village in the country. Thus in the sub-urban and rural areas, the police stations or outposts can be located miles away from some village or community. This means that the response time is always going to be slow.
It is the same with the fire service.  The main fire stations are located within the towns with the sugar company having its own fire tenders. Anytime there is a major fire on the outskirts of the towns it is going to take some time for the fire tenders to get to the scene of the fire because it is impractical to have a fire station in every village for the reason that there is not a critical mass of people or for that matter a high risk of fires to justify having fire tenders in every area.
In order to compensate for this deficiency, social engineering has allowed for lots in sub urban and rural areas to be large with a fair distance separating adjoining houses. This means if a fire occurs in a sub-urban or rural area, it is difficult for that fire to spread to the neighboring building because of space separating the two buildings.
What has caused a great deal of problems for the fire service is that these regulations relating to the distance that should exist between buildings is being compromised. As a result if you live in a rural community and the rules regulating both the distance between buildings and zoning are not being enforced, then should there be a fire at one location, the risk of collateral damage increases.
It is the same things with shops. A number of shops and businesses are being erected in residential areas and as a result there is a breakdown of social controls. A suspicious character is observed walking through a residential area. That person can always claim that they are passing through to go to the shop or to a business within the area.
If, however, there were no shops in that area then that character would be under constant observation by residents and this would help to prevent crimes. Social engineering is therefore absolutely necessary if both crimes and the disastrous effects of fires are to be reduced.
If special business zones were created outside of residential areas, then those zones would be better equipped to develop their own private security measures to protect the businesses from robberies and fires.  It would also make the work of the police easier, since they would be able to concentrate their patrols around these areas.
The problem in Guyana is that all kinds and numbers of businesses are allowed within housing areas and this presents a logistical nightmare for the cops because it means that since businesses are the prime targets by bandits and since businesses are located in almost every village, ward or community, then the police are unable to patrol all these areas that are at risk. Social engineering has to therefore be strictly reintroduced and enforced.
There is a practice in Guyana that once there is a property on a public road then that property is somehow entitled to a business license.  The public roads in Guyana stretch for miles. Therefore businesses are located on large stretches that can run into miles. The police cannot be reasonably expected to patrol all these areas simultaneously.
If therefore crimes and the destructive effects of fires are to be reduced, there has to be return to zoning. It does not mean that existing businesses should be de- licensed. All it means is that there should be a regularization exercise in which owners of business premises in residential areas should be given fifteen years to relocate.
Special business zones and industrial sites should be created for shops, bonds and depots and these should be encouraged to employ their own security and fire-fighting measures with support and backup from the law enforcement and fire fighting agencies.
Governments cannot be expected to totally eradicate crime or fires but once situations such as what arose this past week, they should take steps immediately to find practical solutions such as the strict reintroduction of zoning.

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