You'd think they'd be universally welcomed, but the new streets in the Antelope Extension area continue to stir controversy. Yesterday it was a man fighting to not have a bulldozer plow though his property and today it took on a political dimension. UDP Area Representative Patrick Faber today weighed in on the issue of new streets being put in the Collet area. Faber says that there is a multi-agency master plan for the comprehensive development of the area and now this unplanned, unmapped new project is throwing a wrench into everything. He told us that none of the master planners know about this.
Patrick Faber, Collet Area Representative
"This morning I was out here with members of a smaller group, to that working group to that subcommittee, and this is what you are going through: a whole lot of committees but people are really trying to get things done. We have on that somebody from Immigration because there is a lot of immigration issues at the back here; you have somebody from Housing; from Natural Resources; from the City Council which is responsible for the planning of the city and all those gentlemen were out there this morning and they knew nothing about what's going on here and could not answer what was happening. What we've been waiting for in this area, the area committee has been waiting as well, I've been waiting much longer than the committee by the way, but we have been waiting for a survey to be completed. In this area there is not an official survey yet to say which lot is whose and which lots are available, and where the streets should go, and so on. So BEL and WASA are waiting for those things and the government frustrates us with getting those things and then behind our backs pulls a fast one. When you is the bulldozers running up into somebody's house, it is because they are not waiting for the plan and we are saying if we are going do something, do it the proper way. He's creating a controversy in here because we are trying our very best to sort out things, to do things the proper way, to give people their proper land title, if that is the case, in some cases as well there are two or three people fighting for the same piece of land, in some cases there are people whose houses are in the middle of where streets are supposed to be and that is why we need that official survey and nothing can be done without it. BEL will tell you the same thing. WASA will tell you the same thing. They have told me that for months. At the bottom of all of this are these kids that you see around here. These people who are suffering, and have suffered for a long time, and while it might look like this is something that will benefit us right away, and I'm not standing in the way of streets because we need the streets, we need the lighting, we need the water, but we don't want you to treat us like you always treated us, giving us something just for a little political favor here or there. We want to be treated like we are tax paying citizens."
As for Kevin Mutrie, the young man we spoke with yesterday, he says he's still unable to meet with Richard "Dickie" Bradley to resolve his situation. In April, government appointed a Cabinet task force to look at the area and now Faber and the multi-agents sit on a working group which comes under that Cabinet task force.
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