Revamped barrios to be model for future interventions

Santo Domingo.- The ‘Domingo Savio Integral Urban Transformation Project’ that will benefit 45,000 dwellers of the barrios La Ciénaga and Los Guandules, will become the model for future interventions of the country’s neighborhoods, affirms its coordinator José Miguel González Cuadra.

Interviewed by listin.com.do, the business leader said the Nuevo Domingo Savio, expected to conclude in three years, is more challenging than the project La Nueva Barquita, because of the difficulty of dealing with the people who live in the area to revamp, but will be the model to follow in the future.

He said soil studies in the areas to intervene are now being conducted as well as a legal process for land ownership. “These are neighborhoods that unlike La Barquita, which were state-owned lands, in Domingo Savio there are privately owned lands.”

González said the project, presented to National District mayor David Collado, faces some residents’ complaints that new homes will be provided to tenants and homeowners. He noted however the solution isn’t generalized in all cases, and the plan will be developed family by family.

“It’s impossible for a person who says they have five wood and zinc houses to be given five apartments,” he said.

He said some apartments may be built, but each case will be studied because it’s a neighborhood that has been studied for 30 years and no one had dared to intervene because there have always been difficulties. “Both the community members and the institutions that have worked there, says with disagreements and all, the project must be done for the sake of the families that live there.”