Publication: Sun on Saturday
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Paper Date: Sat, Apr 7, 2002
Byline:
GOVERNMENT yesterday slammed Keystone Development, backers of the development at Mullins Bay, St Peter, saying they had “violated” the conditions of their planning permission “in several instances”.
In a strongly-worded statement from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, Government also took “the strongest objection” to statements by Keystone Development that “actions to enforce the laws of Barbados amount to the exercise of ‘petty bureaucracy’”.
Government noted that while foreign investment was welcomed, such “investment must be carried out with full respect for the laws of our nation”.
The response comes two days after Keystone said it would be pulling out of multi-million-dollar investments here, some of them jointly with Government, after losing a court ruling Tuesday to keep a beach garden erected on the Mullins property.
“The Government of Barbados will not tolerate infringements by investors of the conditions laid down by the Chief Town Planner for the grant of planning permission for developments, especially where such infringements violate and have the potential of doing irreparable harm to our environment.”
The company charged that it had met with nothing but “frustration and bureaucracy” in establishing the property in St Peter.
However, Government said Keystone Development was granted permission “subject to a number of conditions that sought to protect the stability of the coastline and preserve the amenities of the area.
“Regrettably, Keystone has violated the conditions of its planning permission in several instances,” the release stated.
It added that early last year, a wall was constructed without permission and had to be demolished by the Town and Country Planning Department.
Later that same year, the release said, Keystone placed topsoil at the beach and was later forced to remove it again by an enforcement notice issued by the Chief Town Planner.
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Government urged to buy coast land - Saturday-07-April-2001
TOWN PLANNING CONSULTANT Richard Gill has urged Government to buy land on the East Coast to avoid reliving the recent Mullins controversy.
He said current disputes over access to beaches and windows to the sea on the West Coast could have been averted if Government had purchased the land when it was available.
Pointing out it was too late now for that on the West Coast, he suggested Government should purchase land on the East Coast to preserve it for future generations of Barbadians and visitors.
“Government, and I am not relating to any particular party, has always had the opportunity to allocate a part of our national funds to the gradual acquisition of areas of importance; it hasn’t been done,” Gill said at a discussion on land use Thursday night at Treading Lightly, Edgehill, St Thomas.
“Mullins Bay is an interesting case in point. If the Government years ago had bought that whole area, it would be a beautiful window to the sea,” he said.
‘Being left out’
The consultant also said communities felt they were being left out of the planning process, which only led to conflict.
“The type of group like the Mullins group is an excellent idea generally; neighbours getting together to look after their interests.
“There is the problem with people not being informed most of the times that the land is bought or will be developed,” he added.
Some of those present at the meeting suggested more community councils be set up to represent interests of residents before situations got out of hand.
They also vented their frustration over the length of time it took to get a decision out of the Town Planning Department.
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Road rage - Saturday-07-April-2001
Several mangroves were cut for this new road overlaid with sand from Sandy Beach.
by Terry Ally The Ministry of Public Works has bulldozed a road through the Graeme Hall Swamp, upsetting environmentalists.
In cutting the 12-foot wide road about quarter-mile inland and overlaying it with hundreds of tonnes of sand from Sandy Beach, workers cut down white and red mangroves, destroying the habitats of the yellow warbler.
Huge swaths were also cut through another section of the mangrove forest to access the main lake on Barbados’ newest ecotourism site, opening the possibility of an ecological and economic disaster in the event of use of the emergency outfall pipe from the sewerage plant.
The objective was to alleviate flooding on the eastern side caused by years of lack of maintenance of the drainage canals but that work went ahead without full environmental considerations, a Governmentofficer admitted.
The new road followed the path of a smaller track that existed years ago.
Environmentalists have cried out at the lack of ecological sensitivity, especially given the fact that the Graeme Hall Swamp was the last stand of coastal mangroves to survive the chainsaws of developers.
Executive officer of the Barbados Marine Trust, Loretto Duffy-Mayers, said she was shocked at the extent of the destruction and, though the trust appreciated the need for the drainage works, felt that instead of just treating symptoms, a more holistic management approach was needed for the entire ecosystem which was now split in two parts: The eastern side on which the South Coast Sewerage Plant and its emergency outfall pipe were located and the western side which was the home of the ecotourism attraction – the Graeme HallNature Sanctuary.
Engineer in charge of the works, Tyrol Inniss, of the Drainage Unit, said it was a necessary evil.
They had to cut a road wide enough to get heavy-duty equipment far enough into the swamp to cut channels to drain the flood waters from the spring-fed eastern side into the lake at the Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary which was the drainage pattern many years ago.
On the beach side, they were having a problem with a build-up of sand, so they trucked it into the swamp as a surface cover for the road which was now to be stabilised with boulders to minimise sand washing into the swamp.
Manager of the sanctuary, Roger Sweeney, said they were concerned about implications for the water quality on the western side for which they were accountable to Government.
The water on the Government side was low in salinity and any rush of that water into the lake would be too dramatic a shock for marine species, severely impacting on them.
Another major issue was the emergency outflow pipe for the sewerage plant. In the event of a plant shutdown, all the sewage will be dumped into the swamp and with a link between the east and west, that sewage will flow into the eco-tourism attraction creating an economic andecological disaster.
Inniss accepted that was a major concern for him too and admitted that until a site meeting this week, the Drainage Unit was not sufficiently conscious of the ecological concerns related to the mangroves and water quality.
He also accepted that the dynamics of the ecosystem had so changed over the years that the ideal solution would have been to cut a virgin drainage canal for the eastern side and not link it to the west, but that was too expensive an option. Compared to the present work which would cost about $48 000, the virgin canal cost would start around $500 000.
However, he said there was only a 10 per cent flow of water from the eastern side and they would gradually increase this over a period of time while monitoring the water quality.
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Keystone: We’ve played our part - Friday-06-April-2001
KEYSTONE DEVELOPMENTS is accusing a “selfish, bigoted and politically motivated” few of forcing them to pull out of development here.
A statement from the directors Barry Rubery and Peter Inston yesterday said they felt they had received no recognition from either Government, or the Press for their “significant acheivements” here and had had enough.
They listed some of the achievements as: the construction of a large free car park, bathroom facilities, a shower, landscaping on both sides of the road, pavements where there previously were none, a restored beach bar, donations to the Barbados Children’s Trust raised from a Mullins charity, a five-star international standard housing development, and the building of free local vendor stalls.
“But there are a few selfish, bigoted and politically motivated locals who are determined to undermine the good work Keystone has done and the multi-million United States dollars invested and hundreds of jobs created,” the statement said.
“You read nothing in the Press about the positive things Keystone have achieved, it’s all negative and Keystone have now had enough,” it added.
The statement said Keystone would not invest further in Barbados, but would look to other “more amenable Caribbean islands to invest”.
They warned Barbadians, however, that they would have to be careful that other investors who received similar injustice did not pull out as well.
“It is a small island and the pack of cards can easily come crashing down and the high standard of living enjoyed now by most Barbadians could easily disappear,” it concluded.
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$1m tank for the north - Thursday-05-April-2001
Charles Marville
The days of low water pressure and outages in some St Peter and St Thomas districts are coming to an end.
That’s because construction started at the end of February on a $1 million replacement reservoir at Rock Hall, St Peter.
During a site visit yesterday, Charles Marville, an engineer with the Barbados Water Authority, said the new concrete tank would replace a 30-year-old, problem-plagued facility.
He said it would have the capacity to hold a million gallons of water compared with the previous tank’s half-million.
Low pressure
Marville told the DAILY NATION that residents of Indian Ground, who had complained of low pressure for the past two years, and those in Boscobel, St Peter; Rock Hall, St Thomas and Endeavour, St James, should see an improvement. “Residents in the Indian Ground area have been suffering for the past two years. They should see some improvement. We are also looking at construction of a small sub-system in that area, and this should also benefit residents in Apes Hill and Endeavour, St James.” Marville said workmen from a Trinidad firm, Spancrete, in conjunction with other local contractors, poured concrete on the base around March 17.
He said construction was expected to be completed by mid-June.
Over the past several months, several callers to this newspaper complained of low pressure or outages, especially on weekends, which inconvenienced residents.
One resident said that every sugar cane crop season she was forced to catch water every night just in case it was turned off.
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Not a cent more! - Thursday-05-April-2001
GO-AHEAD. The High Court on Tuesday gave Town Planning the green light to continue excavating the controversial beach garden at Mullins Bay, St Peter. Above, National Conservation Commission workmen yesterday continuing the work they started last Thursday.
by ANTHONY BLACKMAN Developers of Mullins Bay have vowed not to spend another cent here because of “frustration and bureaucracy” encountered in establishing the West Coast property.
The announcement from Keystone Developments Ltd., of England, came 24 hours after the company lost a High Court battle to keep a beach garden at the St Peter property which had provoked the anger of residents.
It also came hours after heavy earth-moving equipment from the National Conservation Commission, on the orders of the Chief Town Planner, bulldozed the concrete enclosure and garden constructed a year ago.
Workers rushed to rescue freshly planted palms and other plants. They saved some but others were shredded by a bobcat.
Robert Parkin, project director with Keystone Development, said it was “too time consuming and money consuming” to pursue any further developments here.
He said the company had planned to inject millions into the economy by way of investments, including a joint venture development with the Barbados Tourism Investment Inc. planned for Fort Denmark, St Peter.
That project would have seen the area converted into a multi-million-dollar cruise ship and tourist destination with shops, vendors stalls, market, bars, restaurants and a beach facility for a water taxi service between Speightstown and Bridgetown.
“We have been so frustrated by the petty bureaucracy shown over our Mullins development that we feel it is just not worth the bother to do any more in Barbados and we will now look to invest in other Caribbean islands,” Keystone said.
It complained that despite investing several million US dollars and creating employment for hundreds, directly and indirectly at Mullins, “we have not had one word of encouragement from Government or the other agencies”.
“Government seems to want to encourage development on one hand and to take it away on the other,” Parkin said.
He added that Keystone spent millions “in beautifying areas at Mullins only to have it taken away and constrained by Government”.
Parkin said the company would “honour its obligations at Mullins” and stay with the project.
Nell Jonas, of the Mullins residents’ association, welcomed the court victory and demolition of the garden.
“Justice has taken place, justice reigns supreme,” she declared.