7 News Belize

IDB Wants Belize City “In the Zone”
posted (May 17, 2018)

If you live in a neighborhood where the corner store is right next to the corner bar, which is right across from the school, which is right down the street from the mechanic shop - then you’ll know why Belize needs zoning.  

In Belize, we’ve never really had specific zones for commercial, residential and industrial, but that may be changing. The IDB funded a study for Belize about land use and now it seems it might actually be put to use. Today the City Council had a public meeting regarding zoning and we found out more, 

Sahar Vasquez
“Explain to us what exactly you mean by zoning? Are you putting restaurants in one area, residents in one area?”

Marilyn Ordonez - Belize City Council Director of Finance
“No, that is the important thing the zoning ordinance is coming out of a study that IDB did for Belize City in terms of developing a land use policy. The way you use the land in Belize City and the Ordinance itself is a regulation that will assist us in standardizing and organizing Belize City and so what the act will do is to ensure that we can develop to the social fabric of this city and not segregate. Develop informal parts of the city into formalized structures where we don't discriminate in terms of where poorer or higher class people live. What the act will do is to kind of regulate that so that we have a mixed-use in different areas where it is important to have the density for development of any city. Where we have shopping, people can mix better. It assists in terms of crime and social its ills. It kind of replaces that issue that has been reoccurring within Belize City. The zoning regulation will help and the workshops are to help get the buy-in from the residents, banks, real estate people, who will decide we are to decide how we want our city to be.”

The council will be having more public meetings to discuss zoning with residents.

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