pharoah
03-13-07, - 10:57 PM
http://www.bahamapundit.com/
The Great Bahamian Land Rush
by Sir Arthur Foulkes
A few weeks ago a real estate company in North Carolina, Infinity Partners, posted on its website a “Grand Bahama Island Update” purporting to be a status report on a proposal presented to The Bahamas Government for the development of east Grand Bahama.
The report, dated 7 February 2007, was quickly circulated over the internet and mentioned in several news stories in the local press; but there were no screaming headlines about it in the newspapers.
Perhaps reporters and editors did not give it much credence or maybe they thought it was a hoax since it quickly disappeared from the Infinity Partners website. Prime Minister Perry Christie had been hinting at something big about to happen in Grand Bahama but this was bigger than big.
Then Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe confirmed that the Government had indeed received a development proposal for east Grand Bahama. Even so, the Minister’s revelation was reported in the bottom half of a story about the possible acquisition of the closed Royal Oasis resort in Freeport.
The proposal was put forward by Beka Development Company through its Bahamian subsidiary, Bahamas Golden Beach. It was a genuine proposal Mr. Wilchcombe told The Tribune.
“The proposal has been sent in to the Government, and we are now looking at it. It’s now in the preliminary stages. We have not yet sat and discussed the matter.”
The proposal is for the biggest sale of publicly-owned Bahamian land since the Hawksbill Creek Agreement creating Freeport was signed in 1955. It is, in fact, bigger. Beka wants one hundred square miles of land in east Grand Bahama!
That works out to 64,000 acres; the original Freeport transaction was for 50,000 acres. And it is 20 per cent bigger than New Providence which is only 80 square miles. The proposed price is $2,800 an acre.
Of course, Beka wants a casino licence, what it calls a master casino licence for the rest of Grand Bahama. The proposal also calls for a number of other items including:
All the concessions granted to Kerzner, Baha Mar and Ginn; the right to full access use of the existing harbour; an option to purchase the lease of the entire harbour when the existing lease expires; the right to reopen a secondary airport and to facilitate the arrival of private and charter flights; the right to control the road plan and redirect existing roads to fit the master plan; the right to expand and change components of the project and partner in aspects without reapplication to the Government, and prohibition from others to access any canals or harbours within five miles of the company’s site.
According to Infinity Partners, the existing Bahamian Government will have elections on May 5 and “they would like to complete all the approvals and make a formal announcement at least 30 days in advance”.
Mr. Christie and his colleagues in the PLP Government must have taken leave of their senses even to entertain such a proposal. But it is obvious that preliminary talks have taken place and that Beka has been encouraged to proceed.
Whether Mr. Christie and his colleagues believe it or not, the country is already in an uproar over the giveaway and cheap sale of Bahamian land to foreigners for residential development.
The sale of the Government’s Cable Beach Hotel together with hundreds of acres of prime publicly-owned land in the same area for the scandalous price of $43 million -- and a raft of concessions to boot -- was a betrayal of the interests of the Bahamian people.
The sale to foreign developers of 10,000 acres of publicly-owned land in Mayaguana for just a few hundred dollars an acre with the promise of a 200-room hotel sometime in the future was also an outrageous abuse.
The Mayaguana developers are committed to build, in the first instance, only a boutique hotel which is really a necessary component and amenity for their real interest: the sale of lots on the international market.
It is also reported that the Government is negotiating for the sale of 275 acres of prime beachfront property in Crooked Island to foreign land developers. Fortunately, the local leaders on that island have more sense than the PLP Government and are resisting this deal.
It is easy to understand why foreign land developers and speculators are swooping down on The Bahamas. Mr. Christie and the PLP Government have spread out the red carpet for them in the form of “a new model” for the development of the country. The principal component of that new model is to sell as much Bahamian land to foreigners as they can.
This policy will create a multitude of problems for The Bahamas for many years to come. It is already putting land beyond the reach of many Bahamians, and that is going to cause huge social and political problems in the future.
The developers, for the most part, care little about the conservation of the environment which makes The Bahamas so attractive in the first place, and some of them are already doing irreparable damage to this wonderful natural heritage.
When it is all done they will simply walk away with their billions in profit from the sale of Bahamian land so generously parcelled out to them by the Government of The Bahamas.
If the lots being put on the market in this Great Bahamian Land Rush are sold and occupied then we will have foreign settler communities all over The Bahamas, together with some “second-home owners” who will rent their houses on the internet. This is a recipe for tension and conflict between settlers and natives and, consequently, political problems.
It will also present challenges to our sovereignty because the settlers can be counted on later to make unpalatable demands of us and to resist attempts to regulate or tax their properties. And they will seek the support of their own governments.
Our deluded PLP Prime Minister obviously believes that God is guiding him in his mad rush to sell his people’s birthright to strangers, and that God is looking over his shoulder approvingly as he signs it all away in heads of agreement. That must be why he beams from ear to ear and happily does his shuffle.
But Mr. Christie will learn that God did not give this country to the PLP, as one of his colleagues claimed years ago, and did not personally anoint him as king of The Bahamas with the divine right to dispose of it as he sees fit.
He might also come to understand that God loves all His children – including FNMs – just as much as He loves PLPs, and that we are all put here to do what is right.
There must be some people left in the PLP whose heads have not been disturbed by the rarefied atmosphere of power, who are still in touch with reality, who are not blinded by greed -- people who can stay the hand of this Prime Minister before he signs away all our land.
We are still today dealing with the challenges of certain provisions of the Hawksbill Creek Agreement that was signed half a century ago. Some of the problems with that agreement were apparent from the beginning, some were not. Surely, that in itself is a lesson for Mr. Christie not to do more foolishness in 2007.
It ought to be unthinkable that he and his colleagues would inflict this monstrous insult on the Bahamian people and that he intends to get it all done before the election, but one cannot be sure. That Mr. Christie and his Ministers are “looking at it” is cause for deep worry.
The Great Bahamian Land Rush
by Sir Arthur Foulkes
A few weeks ago a real estate company in North Carolina, Infinity Partners, posted on its website a “Grand Bahama Island Update” purporting to be a status report on a proposal presented to The Bahamas Government for the development of east Grand Bahama.
The report, dated 7 February 2007, was quickly circulated over the internet and mentioned in several news stories in the local press; but there were no screaming headlines about it in the newspapers.
Perhaps reporters and editors did not give it much credence or maybe they thought it was a hoax since it quickly disappeared from the Infinity Partners website. Prime Minister Perry Christie had been hinting at something big about to happen in Grand Bahama but this was bigger than big.
Then Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe confirmed that the Government had indeed received a development proposal for east Grand Bahama. Even so, the Minister’s revelation was reported in the bottom half of a story about the possible acquisition of the closed Royal Oasis resort in Freeport.
The proposal was put forward by Beka Development Company through its Bahamian subsidiary, Bahamas Golden Beach. It was a genuine proposal Mr. Wilchcombe told The Tribune.
“The proposal has been sent in to the Government, and we are now looking at it. It’s now in the preliminary stages. We have not yet sat and discussed the matter.”
The proposal is for the biggest sale of publicly-owned Bahamian land since the Hawksbill Creek Agreement creating Freeport was signed in 1955. It is, in fact, bigger. Beka wants one hundred square miles of land in east Grand Bahama!
That works out to 64,000 acres; the original Freeport transaction was for 50,000 acres. And it is 20 per cent bigger than New Providence which is only 80 square miles. The proposed price is $2,800 an acre.
Of course, Beka wants a casino licence, what it calls a master casino licence for the rest of Grand Bahama. The proposal also calls for a number of other items including:
All the concessions granted to Kerzner, Baha Mar and Ginn; the right to full access use of the existing harbour; an option to purchase the lease of the entire harbour when the existing lease expires; the right to reopen a secondary airport and to facilitate the arrival of private and charter flights; the right to control the road plan and redirect existing roads to fit the master plan; the right to expand and change components of the project and partner in aspects without reapplication to the Government, and prohibition from others to access any canals or harbours within five miles of the company’s site.
According to Infinity Partners, the existing Bahamian Government will have elections on May 5 and “they would like to complete all the approvals and make a formal announcement at least 30 days in advance”.
Mr. Christie and his colleagues in the PLP Government must have taken leave of their senses even to entertain such a proposal. But it is obvious that preliminary talks have taken place and that Beka has been encouraged to proceed.
Whether Mr. Christie and his colleagues believe it or not, the country is already in an uproar over the giveaway and cheap sale of Bahamian land to foreigners for residential development.
The sale of the Government’s Cable Beach Hotel together with hundreds of acres of prime publicly-owned land in the same area for the scandalous price of $43 million -- and a raft of concessions to boot -- was a betrayal of the interests of the Bahamian people.
The sale to foreign developers of 10,000 acres of publicly-owned land in Mayaguana for just a few hundred dollars an acre with the promise of a 200-room hotel sometime in the future was also an outrageous abuse.
The Mayaguana developers are committed to build, in the first instance, only a boutique hotel which is really a necessary component and amenity for their real interest: the sale of lots on the international market.
It is also reported that the Government is negotiating for the sale of 275 acres of prime beachfront property in Crooked Island to foreign land developers. Fortunately, the local leaders on that island have more sense than the PLP Government and are resisting this deal.
It is easy to understand why foreign land developers and speculators are swooping down on The Bahamas. Mr. Christie and the PLP Government have spread out the red carpet for them in the form of “a new model” for the development of the country. The principal component of that new model is to sell as much Bahamian land to foreigners as they can.
This policy will create a multitude of problems for The Bahamas for many years to come. It is already putting land beyond the reach of many Bahamians, and that is going to cause huge social and political problems in the future.
The developers, for the most part, care little about the conservation of the environment which makes The Bahamas so attractive in the first place, and some of them are already doing irreparable damage to this wonderful natural heritage.
When it is all done they will simply walk away with their billions in profit from the sale of Bahamian land so generously parcelled out to them by the Government of The Bahamas.
If the lots being put on the market in this Great Bahamian Land Rush are sold and occupied then we will have foreign settler communities all over The Bahamas, together with some “second-home owners” who will rent their houses on the internet. This is a recipe for tension and conflict between settlers and natives and, consequently, political problems.
It will also present challenges to our sovereignty because the settlers can be counted on later to make unpalatable demands of us and to resist attempts to regulate or tax their properties. And they will seek the support of their own governments.
Our deluded PLP Prime Minister obviously believes that God is guiding him in his mad rush to sell his people’s birthright to strangers, and that God is looking over his shoulder approvingly as he signs it all away in heads of agreement. That must be why he beams from ear to ear and happily does his shuffle.
But Mr. Christie will learn that God did not give this country to the PLP, as one of his colleagues claimed years ago, and did not personally anoint him as king of The Bahamas with the divine right to dispose of it as he sees fit.
He might also come to understand that God loves all His children – including FNMs – just as much as He loves PLPs, and that we are all put here to do what is right.
There must be some people left in the PLP whose heads have not been disturbed by the rarefied atmosphere of power, who are still in touch with reality, who are not blinded by greed -- people who can stay the hand of this Prime Minister before he signs away all our land.
We are still today dealing with the challenges of certain provisions of the Hawksbill Creek Agreement that was signed half a century ago. Some of the problems with that agreement were apparent from the beginning, some were not. Surely, that in itself is a lesson for Mr. Christie not to do more foolishness in 2007.
It ought to be unthinkable that he and his colleagues would inflict this monstrous insult on the Bahamian people and that he intends to get it all done before the election, but one cannot be sure. That Mr. Christie and his Ministers are “looking at it” is cause for deep worry.