Expert witness in the commission of enquiry into the Las Alturas Housing Project, geotechnical engineer Derek Gay, says it was clear prior to purchase of the land at Lady Young Road that it had previously been the site of a quarry. He also said that given this information, the Urban Development Company of T&T (Udecott) should have ensured a geotechnical investigation was done prior to purchase to check the land’s suitability for the number of housing units planned.
Gay was being questioned by lawyer Jagdeo Singh who is representing the commission in the enquiry. Gay told the commission that he was contracted to investigate the land by Planning Associates Ltd (PAL). He said while walking around the site to do reconnaissance, he met a woman living nearby and advised her to move away for the while as he suspected that there would be imminent land movement. “She asked why and I told her the slope is coming down,” Gay said. He said the woman responded that she would not leave as the slope came down every year.
Gay also said he noticed that while there were squatters in the nearby area, no one was living in the expanse of land where the suspected land movement was taking place. “Did you ask why no one was living in that empty expanse of land?” Singh asked. Gay said they would not have answered that question. Singh asked Gay if he had continued to seek the reason for land movement following the woman’s warning.
“I requested aerial photos from the Land and Surveys Division. I studied the images and it suggested the site had been used for quarrying.” Gay said he studied photos that suggested three types of quarrying had taken place on the land, with the first photo taken in 1980. He said his investigations confirmed that the soil had been moving slowly as the woman suggested. The final photo was taken in 2003, one year after the land was purchased by Udecott.
Singh asked Gay whether it was possible to immediately determine from the photo that the land was used for quarrying. “If you asked a civil engineer from Trinidad he would say it was for quarrying.” Chairman Mustafa Ibrahim asked whether the look of the land itself would alert the buyer that it had been used for quarrying. Gay said, “Yes.” He said the same tests would need to be done whether it was low-cost housing or otherwise.