mangrove
02-27-08, - 01:50 AM
by Larry Smith
Someone once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If that’s so, then trying to replicate failed "anchor projects" throughout our islands would seem to make us certifiably insane.
And the craziest project of them all would have to be Bimini Bay - a hugely inappropriate development on a tiny island of less than 2,000 people. At least one senior government minister has already admitted that agreeing to Miami developer Gerado Capo's plans for Bimini in the late 1990s was a crazy "mistake".
So crazy, in fact, that Fabien Cousteau, grandson of famed ocean explorer Jaques Cousteau, has joined the chorus of voices calling for a halt to this development. Fabien, 40, visited Bimini last month to produce a short video for the Ocean Futures Society headed by his father, Jean Michel Cousteau. The Cousteaus are frequent visitors to the Bahamas.
"I was saddened by what I saw on Bimini," he told Tough Call recently. "The scar left by this unsustainable development will take generations to heal. The long-term cultural and economic livelihood of the people of Bimini is being traded for the short-term gain of a single developer. This is unacceptable."
The development's progenitor was the American-owned 100-room Bimini Bay Rod and Gun Club, which opened with its own casino and power plant in 1921 and closed four years later for lack of business before being swept away by hurricanes. In his History of Bimini, author Ashley Saunders described the club as "ahead of its time."
Bimini went on to become a celebrated game fishing destination popularised by well-known writers and industrialists like Ernest Hemingway, Van Campen Heilner, Zane Grey, George Lyons, Michael Lerner and Adam Clayton Powell. They each carved out a place in Bimini's modern folklore, and Tough Call's grandfather rubbed shoulders with some of them when he was commissioner there in the 1940s.
Over the years the derelict Bimini Bay property accreted (through several owners) into a 700-acre estate - incorporating about two thirds of North Bimini, where the settlements of Alice Town and Baley Town are located, and parts of East Bimini, which is a mangrove wetland surrounding a lagoon. Grandiose plans to build a mega-resort on this property in the 1980s foundered - but not until much dredging and land clearing had taken place.
In 1997 Bimini Bay was acquired by Miami developer Garardo Capo, who launched a new mega-development. The government signed off on a high-rise hotel, a 10,000-square-foot casino, hundreds of marina slips, thousands of residential units, a golf course and a commercial centre. The original plans called for building homes and dredging an 85-foot wide channel entirely around Bimini's mangrove-fringed lagoon - essentially killing the only marine nursery in the region.
The following year, in response to criticism from environmentalists, the agreement was scaled back to under 2000 rental units. The hotel was limited to only seven stories and efforts were made to downsize the casino. The scale-back also stopped the ring channel dredging at the head of the lagoon, and called for a specialised "links" golf course, to reduce fresh water demand.
In 2004 the agreement was revisited by the Christie administration - which had been highly critical of Bimini Bay while in opposition. Capo was given a five-year extension to complete the first phase, which included a 250-room hotel (now reduced to four stories), condos, villas and marinas. The 10,000-square-foot casino was now given an option to expand, and the total number of units increased to 2,130, some of which would be built on a 42-acre island reclaimed from the lagoon.
In 2006, the agreement was revisited yet again. The number of residential units dropped to 1887 while the number of marina slips increased - there are now 232. Although the former Ingraham administration had supposedly vetoed development on uninhabited East Bimini, the current master plan calls for residential and commercial areas, as well as a golf course, encircling the entire lagoon.
The developers then agreed to set aside 153 acres on East Bimini in return for additional reclaimed land in the lagoon, and as mitigation for clearing the mangroves. But the precise size of the resort continues to fluctuate. According to General Manager Patrick Perichon, current plans are for 2500 units, and up to 10,000 guests could be at the resort at any one time. They are walled off from the local community and must wear special wrist bands to gain access.
In fact, it is still unclear just how Bimini Bay will eventually turn out. Capo's proposals for the island at one time or another have included an airstrip, a heliport, a theme park, a bridge to South Bimini, and a cruise terminal jutting into the gulf stream that would have involved dynamiting the reef.
'
The golf course and its associated facilities will occupy much of the northern mangrove wetland on East Bimini. But on its web site, the resort says it is "engaging in a habitat creation and restoration programme that will maintain the surrounding mangrove wetlands healthy and teeming with life."
Dr Sammy Gruber, a well-known University of Miami marine biologist who has worked on Bimini for years, is adamantly opposed to the development, along with many of his colleagues. Yet the resort's web site claims it is "working hard to help preserve the natural wonders of Bimini for generations to come, together with marine biologists and governmental organizations."
Fabien Cousteau was attracted to Bimini by Cindy Slater, a Floridian who has been visiting the island since childhood. She is devastated by what is happening there, and set up the Save Bimini Association to fight back: "You can tell the people who live at Bimini Bay," she says, "as opposed to those who come to enjoy the real Bimini - they wear high heels instead of flip flops. The resort should stop where it is now - there is no need for a golf course to fill in the mangroves."
Bahamian environmental expert Neil Sealey agrees. "The people of Bimini are now trapped behind a wall while most of their island has been taken over by a developer who wants to knock golf balls around. The North Sound and the entire mangrove area to the east are clearly deserving of some sort of protected status - it's an oasis in a vast expanse of water."
Cousteau and Slater were in Nassau last week to meet with a variety of politicos, enviromentalists and media folks. Slater said no one they spoke to could understand why the Bimini Bay development is allowed to continue in its present format: "Even Capo could turn this around and have a resort that draws on a marine park. Bimini's resources for ecotourism are huge."
According to Bahamas National Trust deputy president Pericles Maillis, Bimini Bay is one of a handful of development "anomalies" in the Bahamas, and the government has had the grace to admit it was a mistake. He noted that the project was on the upcoming BNT council meeting's agenda, and there are expectations that some sort of "green line" will be drawn to stop further development.
"I can tell you that there is a joint initiative right now between the BNT and the government to look at the agreements and the extent of compliance and to see how we can ameliorate the situation. But," he warned, "in a democracy, things that are done are not often undone."
Some say the future of Bimini is in the hands of those who live there. Environmentalists can point out what's wrong, but it's the local folk who must force the politicos to act. As one Biminite said in Cousteau's video, Paradise in Peril, "Bimini is the fishing capital of the Bahamas. If you gonna come to Bimini to play golf, then you going away from what Bimini is all about."
Briland Bustup
Bimini is a disaster - we can only hope to cut our losses and salvage what we can. But Harbour Island is a disaster about to happen. Still celebrated by travel pros, rampant overdevelopment has put it on a knife's edge - one slip and this little community will cut its own throat.
The Briland image that most web sites paint is of "a tiny, Victorian-style village of narrow streets, bougainvillea-draped archways, and friendly people. There's pastel cottages, sensuous palms, a turquoise bay studded by yachts and working boats, and of course, that gorgeous three-mile beach."
And that same pink sand beach is a prized money-maker for the little inns and villas that dot the dune. Harbour Island is now among the most popular destinations in the Bahamas (after Nassau, Freeport and Marsh Harbour) - and in per capita terms it is THE Bahamian destination.
But lately, the scattering of boutique resorts with familiar names - like Romora Bay, Coral Sands, Dunmore Beach and Pink Sands - has given way to a flood of ad hoc and largely unregulated developments and expansions. This has led to overcrowding, congestion, environmental problems, social friction and racial animosity.
In short, unless we take stock, Harbour Island - an early capital of the Bahamas - will soon be able to match what Capo has achieved on Bimini - the bloody death of the goose that lays the golden egg. And we will all suffer as a result.
Restaurant owner Julie Lightbourne put it this way: "At the rate we are going, Brilanders will be completely disenfranchised and outnumbered by white foreigners. Change may be good, but we'd like to see some upgrading of the infrastructure first. At the very least there should be a moratorium on building until this is done."
She was referring to the island's chronic power outages and water shortages, as well as to the thoughtless expansion of condo hotels and marinas that threaten to overwhelm historic Dunmore Town. The two projects that have generated the most heat lately are the proposed redevelopment of Romora Bay on the harbour side, and the pending development of Runaway Hill on the ocean side.
The 22-room Romora Bay Club is now owned by Miami developer Darryl Parmenter. In 2005 he unveiled plans for a mega yacht marina covering four acres of the harbour as well as 40 new condos in several buildings. This oversized development sparked the formation of a public interest group called the Save Harbour Island Association, which claims over a hundred members, but word on the street is that the development has been given a green light.
Meanwhile, the 11-room Runaway Hill Inn was acquired in 2004 by retired Canadian hockey star Mark Messier. The government's terms for the sale were that the nine-acre property would be operated only as a boutique hotel. But in December, Messier applied for an innocuous "extension", which has turned out to include a convention centre, commercial centre, spa, 50 new rental units, and 80 parking spaces, as well as a second bar and restaurant right on top of the dune.
According to the Save Harbour Island Association, this proposal is "well beyond anyone’s definition of a small boutique hotel" and the community has had no chance to consider and respond to the plans in a public hearing. In addition, the proposal "exceeds the limits for the hotel district in the master plan for Harbour Island...that is nearing completion by the Ministry of Works."
The Runaway Hill application is the latest in a series of proposals and approvals that are putting Briland’s infrastructure and economy at risk. These developments will add some 245 new residential units and 90 boat slips to a community of less than 500 Bahamian households and 220 winter resident homes.
"Since most of the slips and condos are, or will be, owned/leased by non-Bahamians, the government has authorized enough foreign development to reduce Bahamians to minority status on their own island," the Association said. "increasing the strain on the island’s infrastructure by about 50 per cent without having made any provision to accommodate it.
"The long-term model of small boutique hotels and a committed winter resident community has worked well for more than 50 years, and has placed Harbour Island in an enviable position. Unlike other Family Island communities, Harbour Island does not need more major development."
Meanwhile, residents are protesting Messier's plan to build a bar and grill on the dune - something that the island's planning committee is considering this week: "He already has a bar and restaurant only 50 feet away, at approximately the same distance from the beach as most of the other restaurants," said one opponent. "Nowhere else in the world would people contemplate building on the dune or ripping out acres of greenspace on a small congested island. This is not environmental stewardship, this is a flouting of common sense."
It remains to be seen whether local government officials will opt to prove their sanity by rejecting unnecessary development and commercialization. The alternative will be to lose the island's heritage and way of life through the same mistakes that have been made in Bimini.
February 26, 2008 in environment | Permalink
Someone once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If that’s so, then trying to replicate failed "anchor projects" throughout our islands would seem to make us certifiably insane.
And the craziest project of them all would have to be Bimini Bay - a hugely inappropriate development on a tiny island of less than 2,000 people. At least one senior government minister has already admitted that agreeing to Miami developer Gerado Capo's plans for Bimini in the late 1990s was a crazy "mistake".
So crazy, in fact, that Fabien Cousteau, grandson of famed ocean explorer Jaques Cousteau, has joined the chorus of voices calling for a halt to this development. Fabien, 40, visited Bimini last month to produce a short video for the Ocean Futures Society headed by his father, Jean Michel Cousteau. The Cousteaus are frequent visitors to the Bahamas.
"I was saddened by what I saw on Bimini," he told Tough Call recently. "The scar left by this unsustainable development will take generations to heal. The long-term cultural and economic livelihood of the people of Bimini is being traded for the short-term gain of a single developer. This is unacceptable."
The development's progenitor was the American-owned 100-room Bimini Bay Rod and Gun Club, which opened with its own casino and power plant in 1921 and closed four years later for lack of business before being swept away by hurricanes. In his History of Bimini, author Ashley Saunders described the club as "ahead of its time."
Bimini went on to become a celebrated game fishing destination popularised by well-known writers and industrialists like Ernest Hemingway, Van Campen Heilner, Zane Grey, George Lyons, Michael Lerner and Adam Clayton Powell. They each carved out a place in Bimini's modern folklore, and Tough Call's grandfather rubbed shoulders with some of them when he was commissioner there in the 1940s.
Over the years the derelict Bimini Bay property accreted (through several owners) into a 700-acre estate - incorporating about two thirds of North Bimini, where the settlements of Alice Town and Baley Town are located, and parts of East Bimini, which is a mangrove wetland surrounding a lagoon. Grandiose plans to build a mega-resort on this property in the 1980s foundered - but not until much dredging and land clearing had taken place.
In 1997 Bimini Bay was acquired by Miami developer Garardo Capo, who launched a new mega-development. The government signed off on a high-rise hotel, a 10,000-square-foot casino, hundreds of marina slips, thousands of residential units, a golf course and a commercial centre. The original plans called for building homes and dredging an 85-foot wide channel entirely around Bimini's mangrove-fringed lagoon - essentially killing the only marine nursery in the region.
The following year, in response to criticism from environmentalists, the agreement was scaled back to under 2000 rental units. The hotel was limited to only seven stories and efforts were made to downsize the casino. The scale-back also stopped the ring channel dredging at the head of the lagoon, and called for a specialised "links" golf course, to reduce fresh water demand.
In 2004 the agreement was revisited by the Christie administration - which had been highly critical of Bimini Bay while in opposition. Capo was given a five-year extension to complete the first phase, which included a 250-room hotel (now reduced to four stories), condos, villas and marinas. The 10,000-square-foot casino was now given an option to expand, and the total number of units increased to 2,130, some of which would be built on a 42-acre island reclaimed from the lagoon.
In 2006, the agreement was revisited yet again. The number of residential units dropped to 1887 while the number of marina slips increased - there are now 232. Although the former Ingraham administration had supposedly vetoed development on uninhabited East Bimini, the current master plan calls for residential and commercial areas, as well as a golf course, encircling the entire lagoon.
The developers then agreed to set aside 153 acres on East Bimini in return for additional reclaimed land in the lagoon, and as mitigation for clearing the mangroves. But the precise size of the resort continues to fluctuate. According to General Manager Patrick Perichon, current plans are for 2500 units, and up to 10,000 guests could be at the resort at any one time. They are walled off from the local community and must wear special wrist bands to gain access.
In fact, it is still unclear just how Bimini Bay will eventually turn out. Capo's proposals for the island at one time or another have included an airstrip, a heliport, a theme park, a bridge to South Bimini, and a cruise terminal jutting into the gulf stream that would have involved dynamiting the reef.
'
The golf course and its associated facilities will occupy much of the northern mangrove wetland on East Bimini. But on its web site, the resort says it is "engaging in a habitat creation and restoration programme that will maintain the surrounding mangrove wetlands healthy and teeming with life."
Dr Sammy Gruber, a well-known University of Miami marine biologist who has worked on Bimini for years, is adamantly opposed to the development, along with many of his colleagues. Yet the resort's web site claims it is "working hard to help preserve the natural wonders of Bimini for generations to come, together with marine biologists and governmental organizations."
Fabien Cousteau was attracted to Bimini by Cindy Slater, a Floridian who has been visiting the island since childhood. She is devastated by what is happening there, and set up the Save Bimini Association to fight back: "You can tell the people who live at Bimini Bay," she says, "as opposed to those who come to enjoy the real Bimini - they wear high heels instead of flip flops. The resort should stop where it is now - there is no need for a golf course to fill in the mangroves."
Bahamian environmental expert Neil Sealey agrees. "The people of Bimini are now trapped behind a wall while most of their island has been taken over by a developer who wants to knock golf balls around. The North Sound and the entire mangrove area to the east are clearly deserving of some sort of protected status - it's an oasis in a vast expanse of water."
Cousteau and Slater were in Nassau last week to meet with a variety of politicos, enviromentalists and media folks. Slater said no one they spoke to could understand why the Bimini Bay development is allowed to continue in its present format: "Even Capo could turn this around and have a resort that draws on a marine park. Bimini's resources for ecotourism are huge."
According to Bahamas National Trust deputy president Pericles Maillis, Bimini Bay is one of a handful of development "anomalies" in the Bahamas, and the government has had the grace to admit it was a mistake. He noted that the project was on the upcoming BNT council meeting's agenda, and there are expectations that some sort of "green line" will be drawn to stop further development.
"I can tell you that there is a joint initiative right now between the BNT and the government to look at the agreements and the extent of compliance and to see how we can ameliorate the situation. But," he warned, "in a democracy, things that are done are not often undone."
Some say the future of Bimini is in the hands of those who live there. Environmentalists can point out what's wrong, but it's the local folk who must force the politicos to act. As one Biminite said in Cousteau's video, Paradise in Peril, "Bimini is the fishing capital of the Bahamas. If you gonna come to Bimini to play golf, then you going away from what Bimini is all about."
Briland Bustup
Bimini is a disaster - we can only hope to cut our losses and salvage what we can. But Harbour Island is a disaster about to happen. Still celebrated by travel pros, rampant overdevelopment has put it on a knife's edge - one slip and this little community will cut its own throat.
The Briland image that most web sites paint is of "a tiny, Victorian-style village of narrow streets, bougainvillea-draped archways, and friendly people. There's pastel cottages, sensuous palms, a turquoise bay studded by yachts and working boats, and of course, that gorgeous three-mile beach."
And that same pink sand beach is a prized money-maker for the little inns and villas that dot the dune. Harbour Island is now among the most popular destinations in the Bahamas (after Nassau, Freeport and Marsh Harbour) - and in per capita terms it is THE Bahamian destination.
But lately, the scattering of boutique resorts with familiar names - like Romora Bay, Coral Sands, Dunmore Beach and Pink Sands - has given way to a flood of ad hoc and largely unregulated developments and expansions. This has led to overcrowding, congestion, environmental problems, social friction and racial animosity.
In short, unless we take stock, Harbour Island - an early capital of the Bahamas - will soon be able to match what Capo has achieved on Bimini - the bloody death of the goose that lays the golden egg. And we will all suffer as a result.
Restaurant owner Julie Lightbourne put it this way: "At the rate we are going, Brilanders will be completely disenfranchised and outnumbered by white foreigners. Change may be good, but we'd like to see some upgrading of the infrastructure first. At the very least there should be a moratorium on building until this is done."
She was referring to the island's chronic power outages and water shortages, as well as to the thoughtless expansion of condo hotels and marinas that threaten to overwhelm historic Dunmore Town. The two projects that have generated the most heat lately are the proposed redevelopment of Romora Bay on the harbour side, and the pending development of Runaway Hill on the ocean side.
The 22-room Romora Bay Club is now owned by Miami developer Darryl Parmenter. In 2005 he unveiled plans for a mega yacht marina covering four acres of the harbour as well as 40 new condos in several buildings. This oversized development sparked the formation of a public interest group called the Save Harbour Island Association, which claims over a hundred members, but word on the street is that the development has been given a green light.
Meanwhile, the 11-room Runaway Hill Inn was acquired in 2004 by retired Canadian hockey star Mark Messier. The government's terms for the sale were that the nine-acre property would be operated only as a boutique hotel. But in December, Messier applied for an innocuous "extension", which has turned out to include a convention centre, commercial centre, spa, 50 new rental units, and 80 parking spaces, as well as a second bar and restaurant right on top of the dune.
According to the Save Harbour Island Association, this proposal is "well beyond anyone’s definition of a small boutique hotel" and the community has had no chance to consider and respond to the plans in a public hearing. In addition, the proposal "exceeds the limits for the hotel district in the master plan for Harbour Island...that is nearing completion by the Ministry of Works."
The Runaway Hill application is the latest in a series of proposals and approvals that are putting Briland’s infrastructure and economy at risk. These developments will add some 245 new residential units and 90 boat slips to a community of less than 500 Bahamian households and 220 winter resident homes.
"Since most of the slips and condos are, or will be, owned/leased by non-Bahamians, the government has authorized enough foreign development to reduce Bahamians to minority status on their own island," the Association said. "increasing the strain on the island’s infrastructure by about 50 per cent without having made any provision to accommodate it.
"The long-term model of small boutique hotels and a committed winter resident community has worked well for more than 50 years, and has placed Harbour Island in an enviable position. Unlike other Family Island communities, Harbour Island does not need more major development."
Meanwhile, residents are protesting Messier's plan to build a bar and grill on the dune - something that the island's planning committee is considering this week: "He already has a bar and restaurant only 50 feet away, at approximately the same distance from the beach as most of the other restaurants," said one opponent. "Nowhere else in the world would people contemplate building on the dune or ripping out acres of greenspace on a small congested island. This is not environmental stewardship, this is a flouting of common sense."
It remains to be seen whether local government officials will opt to prove their sanity by rejecting unnecessary development and commercialization. The alternative will be to lose the island's heritage and way of life through the same mistakes that have been made in Bimini.
February 26, 2008 in environment | Permalink