The
Center Ville area of the capital, the commercial and administrative heart of
the Caribbean nation, was one of the worst hit by the catastrophic January 12
quake, which turned many of its shops and landmark buildings to rubble.
Prime
Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said Haiti had sought help from the charity
foundation of the 61-year-old heir to the British throne, who has stirred
controversy with his criticism of modern architecture, to draw up a master plan
for the harmonious reconstruction of downtown Port-au-Prince.
"The
contact has already been made, there is an informal agreement, we have to
formalize all that," Bellerive told Reuters this week.
He said
Haiti was seeking a "coherent" rebuilding plan from The Prince's
Foundation for the Built Environment, which would work on the project with
urban planners Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, based in Miami, Washington
and Charlotte, N.C.
"They
have the experience," he said. The Port-au-Prince city center makeover is
part of a national recovery strategy that seeks to "decompress"
Haiti's hilly capital, which even before the quake was a chaotic, overcrowded
warren of streets clogged with vendors, vehicles and pedestrians.
"I
hope that we're going to see Port-au-Prince as a huge construction field,"
Haitian central bank governor Charles Castel said, adding that funds freed up
by an International Monetary Fund (IMF) cancellation of $268 million of debt
would help in the reconstruction of the city's administrative heart.
An army
of resilient street hawkers quickly returned to the traditionally bustling
Port-au-Prince downtown area after the quake, which killed up to 300,000 people
and devastated the economy of what was already the poorest state in the
Americas.
They have
laid out their wares again - everything from fruit, food and vehicle and
electrical spare parts to voodoo paraphernalia - alongside or on top of mounds
of crumbled debris which narrow the streets for vehicles and pedestrians.
But much
still lies in ruins, and key buildings like the Haitian parliament, the Justice
Palace and the 19th Century Iron Market were either destroyed or damaged.
