Zoning Will Not Forget the Public Spaces in the City

Keisha Rodriguez

The zoning ordinance looks on industrial and residential areas to determine the plans for the city. A big part of the planning also involved public spaces; and once the ordinance becomes legislation; the City Council will be looking at how the spaces are used. Rodriguez explains.

Keisha Rodriguez, Urban Development Planner, Belize City Council

“The zoning ordinance looks at several different zones. So, you have zones with different mixes of uses. So, perhaps on the ground floor you have businesses, residential on the upper floor, as well as medium density and purely residential areas. And then there are public facilities areas, as you said the public spaces demarcated. So, the zoning ordinance is a tool. And what it does is to give the council the ability is to say or tell people that you are not legally able to develop this area because it is designated as public space. For example, a lot of people go and settle along the rivers and those are areas that should be designated for public space. If you go to other countries, you will notice that they have really nice river walks and so forth, and so what the zoning ordinance will do is to ensure that people can be legally moved from those areas if they try to settle in those areas. And so the City will have those areas for future development if they want to do a river walk or park along those areas, they are designated in law that they are not to be developed.”

The City Council says that other consultations will take place for residents to contribute to the development of the ordinance and map.