SANTO DOMINGO.- The unplanned construction of apartment towers, its ensuing population growth, and the abuse of sidewalks by businesses were identified yesterday as the main causes of traffic’s “collapse” during rush hour in Santo Domingo’s central sectors, and problems in the sewage systems that prompted an urban engineer to call the upscale Naco sector a “sewage time bomb.”

The university Unphu hosted the Forum “Spaces,” to analyze the norms in those sectors and reached those conclusions.

Architecture Faculty dean Omar Rancier said basic services aren’t growing on pace with the population, which causes frequent interruptions in the supply of water, energy, sewage system and others. “The number of houses and buildings grows without considering how to adapt the basic services to that new population beforehand.”

He said the National District City Council urgently needs to design and implement a Master Plan in coordination with the municipalities of Greater Santo Domingo.

The participants agreed that the lack of policies, plans and management instruments are partly to blame for the problems in the central urban sectors and the rest of the country.

Among the Forum’s recommendations is the need to establish penalties for violator of municipal norms.

Rancier said in the National District City Council’s  approval to build apartment buildings political decisions often take part, “which must be solved by the city council internally.”

Downtown

The problems already affect the sectors such as Gazcue, which has begun to suffer consequences of unchecked population growth and lack of urban planning, since one of the main sewage system lines collapses often, the architect said.

City Council technicians, the Housing Builders and Promoters Association, city planning officials, and representatives of neighborhood boards participated in the meeting.