THE MATILDA'S Corner Police have promised to step up patrols in the Beverly Hills, St. Andrew area after empty beer bottles were thrown at the home of an executive member of the Beverly Hills Citizens Association (BHCA) and bags of garbage dumped at his gate.
The action is the latest in the prolonged dispute between the Long Mountain Country Club, which is overseeing the development of a housing scheme in the area, and the BHCA.
Several letters have been exchanged and copied to the Prime Minister and Minister of Housing, with the citizens association accusing the developers of not following protocol and being a nuisance in the upscale neighbourhood.
Real estate consultant and member of the BHCA Executive Management Committee, James Chisholm, who said that he expects worse to come, explained that bags of household refuse were piled at his gate and bottles thrown at his windows on Beverly Drive on Wednesday - incidents, he believes, are based on his representation of residents and his insistence that the developers, among other things, cease to use Beverly Hills roads as a liaison to the Country Club housing scheme.
The police maintain that they do not know the source of the incident, but have promised to step up their patrols in that community.
Mr. Chisholm believes that the developers are using Beverly Hills roads as a vehicle to woo buyers into believing that the gated Country Club was a part of the upscale residential Beverly Hills community.
The development is being completed by Selective Homes Development Limited, and was approved by the Prime Minister for development in 2000.
The site is located on the south western side of the Long Mountain ridge facing Mountain View Avenue, on about 24 hectares.
The main access road leads from Karachi Avenue, off Mona Road, St. Andrew, traversing the north eastern flank of the mountain.
Accusations that the developers have failed to follow the rules as contracted, and continuous interventions by BHCA via mail to the OPM and Housing and Mining Ministries stating such have been rejected by Selective Housing.
The residents have complained that "continued blasting has been causing structural damage" to their houses.
Letters from BHCA written and copied to the Prime Minister and Housing Minister on June 8, state that though the access road has been functional for quite some time now, Selective Homes has not blocked access from the top of Montclair Drive, Beverly Hills as promised and has failed to construct a cut-stone wall to separate the two communities.
The company is also constructing a collection depot for sewage in the buffer zone green area reserved at the end of Montclair Drive and next door to houses in Beverly Hills without any notice to residents.
But according to Selective Homes managing director, Robert Cartade, in letters to the BHCA, there was never any plan to have only one access to the gated community. He said the Housing Minister never indicated that Beverly Hills roads were not to be used, but that no construction traffic should pass through the road network."
The letter said personnel from the Ministry of Mining were present on some of the blasts and that locations being blasted are far from the homes of residents. The Ministry subsequently denied that blasting was monitored by personnel from that department.
