The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

A CORAL Harbour property owners association yesterday expressed outrage over the private development of land previously designated for public use.

Sonya Alvino, the president of the Coral Harbour South Property Owners Association, questioned how reserved community spaces could be withdrawn from public use without adequate consultation or access to information.

She said: “The residents of Coral Harbour South have taken pride in the areas outlined and under complaint and have been maintaining the beach front acreage for the past 15 years at least. Additionally, they have expended considerable funds to have architectural plans drafted for a community club house at another ‘reserved’ property. We refute the claim that these properties were never intended to be reserved for our use.”

The residents challenged private use of the reserved space in Coral Harbour and Ocean Beach Colony subdivisions in 2009. At that time, then director of Physical Planning Michael Major acknowledged the areas as public spaces and notified them that the Ministry of Works was in the process of preparing “public beach access” signs.

“We wrote to Government for clarity on this in 2009 in a letter that was signed by over 20 residents and which included maps showing the areas under question,” Ms Alvino said. “Mr Major wrote back to us and confirmed that these were indeed reserved for the use of residents, so how can this suddenly change now that a developer is in the picture?”

At a town planning meeting in February, the residents were told that the reserved properties were not for communal use but further development. “This is in direct contradiction to a letter we have in our possession from Michael Major, which states the opposite,” Ms Alvino said.

“This makes us extremely suspicious. Add to that the fact that we were denied access to the Coral Harbour Physical Planning files when requested three weeks prior to the Town Planning Meeting, and also denied access to the internal report which the Chairman of the meeting read from ... yet suddenly, during the meeting, we were permitted access to the file. Again, this makes us extremely suspicious about what has taken place here.”

Ms Alvino said the matter highlighted the urgent need for Freedom of Information legislation to provide public access to information within a reasonable time frame.