The protracted court battle between the Discovery Land Company and the Save Guana Cay Reef Association has caused lengthy delays at the $500 million Bakers Bay development, and every day the project is delayed, the cost to the company increases, according to a spokesman for the developers.
The company has also asserted that the association has not accepted a number of invitations to go and view the property and sit with the company to voice its concerns.
The association is asking the Supreme Court to declare that the government had no legal right to enter into a heads of agreement with Discovery Land Company. It also claims that the developers are already damaging the environment – a claim the company vehemently denies.
Additionally, the association insists that residents were not properly consulted, another claim the company has rejected as an untruth. The Privy Council recently granted the association an injunction, stopping the project until the Supreme Court rules on the substantive case, which wrapped up in February.
Each month the project does not go forward is costing DLC about $1.4 million, according to the company’s Senior Vice President, Dr. Livingston Marshall. He explained that the company has contractual obligations that are being “set aside.”
“When you find that you are continuously spending but not taking in, well of course you head down the road where you might be looking at more red ink as opposed to black ink, so it’s that type of thing for us,” he said.
“But this company did not come to The Bahamas on a wing and a prayer – they came here exceptionally well planned. I think that is also true of their financial picture, and so while it is costing us, we are prepared to stay in this for the long haul and to be able to weather any financial challenge we might experience.”
Dr. Marshall confirmed that for the most part the heavy equipment at Guana Cay is “sitting idle.” He said the company has re-instituted the undertaking it gave last November, which calls for the company to not engage in construction.
“There is some basic maintenance stuff that we still do – pulling water trucks or pulling water containers, for example, with small tractors to be able to keep vegetation alive in the nursery and on the beach dunes. We are doing those things because you have to maintain components of your project even in this state,” he said.
While the lengthy delays are having an immediate financial effect on the company, Dr. Marshall said he was confident that the Discovery Land Company had the ability to close the gap on time lost during the court proceedings.
“Yes we would prefer to be building Baker’s Bay at this point, but that’s not the reality. The reality is that we will wait for the Supreme Court decision, and if and when we are allowed to proceed, we will build a very fine product that The Bahamas will be proud of, and Discovery Land Company will be proud of and that Bahamians can be proud of.”
Dr. Marshall noted that there have been a number of visits to Baker’s Bay over the last year and a half, including visits by government ministers and representatives, members of the Official Opposition, private citizens and environmentalists. All have left reassured, he said, and impressed with the intended plans.
“What is still missing from [this discussion] is that we have extended numerous invitations to the Save Guana Cay Reef Association, and their associates, and to date – we can’t understand why – no one [from the association] has really taken us up on that invitation to come out and see the product,” Dr. Marshall said.
“And I believe that if you have all of these concerns, it would be very important to sit down, hear what the real plans are, get the details, see the project from top to bottom and then you can go away with your own decision as opposed to sitting back, not having seen the property or the project, and then trying to draw conclusions.”
The Discovery Land Company plans to use a little more than 30 of nearly 150 acres of Crown and Treasury land in play at the Baker’s Bay development on Great Guana Cay – 43 acres of that is Treasury land, with the remaining 105 acres being Crown land.
“Of that 43 acres, Discovery Land Company and Baker’s Bay never got 23 of those acres from the government – [that land] was never a part of the heads of agreement,” Dr. Marshall explained.
“And then when you further break down the remaining 20 acres which the heads of agreement does in principle agree to let the Discovery Land Company lease and/or conditionally purchase, there is about eight acres of that that we will use for a staging area, and after six years that land very, very likely goes back to the government.”
On the question of the Crown land, Dr. Marshall explained that 66 of the 105 acres of Crown land automatically goes into a preserve, leaving 39 acres available for the project. He said the company really intends to purchase only about 15 of that 39 acres.
“None of those leases and [agreements] involves any giving of land to the project,” he said.
Dr. Marshall said the company is unlikely to simply pull up stakes and leave because of the fuss raised by the association, both because of the potentially “tremendous benefit” to the company and the Bahamian people and because the association’s concerns are not unique.
“It is not unusual in today’s world that you would get some push-back, or feedback, or concerns by entities like the Save Guana Cay Reef Association to developments of the type that we are doing at Baker’s Bay,” he said.
“What needs to be made clear is that the concerns that SGCRA has raised are not unlike concerns that we have heard and we have seen before at other projects, and particularly from other entities in The Bahamas, and to the extent that it’s practical, to the extent that it’s meaningful, to the extent that it’s sincere, we have been looking at those concerns and we have been addressing those concerns.”
To some degree, he said, Discovery Land Company’s intention to stick it out does boil down to dollars and cents, but he insisted that it is also a matter of “creating lifestyles for people.”
“There is a demand for the kinds of projects and the kinds of products that Discovery Land Company does, and if The Bahamas is going to have the best possible type projects, I think DLC is the model for doing the kinds of projects that pays attention to the environment, that’s willing to work hand in hand with government, and especially the environment – those are the kinds of developers that we want coming into this country,” he said.
Dr. Marshall numbered the jobs lost to the delays in the hundreds, suggesting that during construction the company would need to hire at least 200 people, possibly as many as 300.
By: Quincy Parker, The Bahama Journal
