City Council unveils plans for future
It is best known to the public as the collector of property tax and issuer of traffic tickets… but today the Belize City Council unveiled an ambitious project to expand the urban centre’s appeal.
Ann-Marie Williams, Reporting
With less than eight months before voters go to the polls to elect a new City Council, Mayor David Fonseca unveiled an ambitious eight-year plan for a new city titled “Metrovision”.
The concept is about creating jobs, marketing the city as a tourist destination and bringing investment opportunities to the old capital.
Ann-Marie Williams
“The city has had some great potential over the years, but it hasn’t been maximised, why just now?”
David Fonseca, Belize City Mayor
“Well the city has always been moving along. We believe that it’s time for us to get up on our own feet and to run with the city. The city, like other municipalities within the country have always been somewhat dependent on what happens nationally. If it happens, then the city moves along with it or the town moves along with it. We have decided that is not the pace we are accepting, we want to be moving the progress and development of the city at a faster pace.”
Fonseca contends that while the city’s main revenue earners are property taxes, traffic and liquor licenses, it will take much more than the traditional monies to transform the city. He’s suggesting raising capital from municipal bonds, which will require an amendment to the City Council’s act.
David Fonseca
“The bonds will work in the sense that they will be floated and investors from local entities–in the insurance agencies, some other private companies, have already expressed an interest in doing it–they’ll run for fifteen years, one issue for fifteen years, one for twenty years. And the actual rate of interest is not finalised as yet, but it’ll be somewhere between nine point seven to eleven percent. Somewhere in that region would be the payback figure for those people investing in the bonds.”
Hence the improvement of the city will be possible. And what image will the new Belize City take on?
David Fonseca
“It is to create a boardwalk from the Tourism Village on the riverside to the Swing Bridge. Then you go across the bridge and behind the Commercial Centre, or in front of the Commercial Centre on the riverside, up the southern Foreshore, ending at the House of Culture; a boardwalk going all the way. And in between that boardwalk, you’ll have tourism amenities, where the local crafts men and women would be there to sell their products in carvings and souvenirs and what have you. In addition to that, bringing in also the Bliss Institute to have cultural presentations taking place there on a daily basis.”
Ann-Marie Williams for News 5.
If you have some special plans for the city you can phone in your suggestions at 227-3073.
