Belvedere residents want
to have land saga settled
BELVEDERE--In a press release issued by the Belvedere community, residents say they are tired of the take-it-or-leave-it attitude of Commissioner of Housing Roy Marlin and the don’t-care attitude of St. Maarten Housing Development Foundation (SMHDF) and therefore have decided to take their case a notch higher.
They said on Saturday, March 3, that a meeting had been held with Leader of Government Commissioner Sarah Wescot-Williams where the land for sale which is now making headlines was pointed out to her and suggestions for this land geared towards helping the people of Belvedere were discussed.
Residents said Wescot-Williams genuinely appeared shocked that the land was just lying there, because she had believed it was in the hands of a company for development. The issue was that neither SMHDF nor government was sure about its availability.
The release further stated that through numerous phone calls and much legwork, a member of the Belvedere Community committee had researched the land issue and had been able to present the ideas. The commissioner then agreed that the people of Belvedere should be given first preference. She asked for a grace period of 10 days to carry out the necessary research herself and get back to the residents with an answer about the land and the sale of the duplexes at a more reasonable rate.
They said she had listened quite sympathetically to their concerns and appeared willing to clear up the matter as speedily as possible, which brought some measure of relief and new hopes to their frustrations.
However, the residents stated they had received no positive answer for both issues to date and had heard via the media that land was for sale in Belvedere. The residents said efforts to meet with Wescot-Williams on March 29 had proved futile and the promise of a positive answer on March 30 had not materialised.
The residents have been told to give the decision process another week. They are now calling on the community to be strong and stand together. Banners bearing slogans such as “Roy’s realestate.com a man Belvedere cannot count on” and “We came, we saw, we settled” have been placed at strategic points with what the residents stated was a simple message of “Let us stand together, for in unity there is strength.”
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