The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Minnis administration’s Prospect Ridge young professionals community progressed as far as having architectural sketch plans completed, an FNM senator yesterday.

Viana Gardiner, former chairman for the initiative under the Minnis administration, argued that the project was “advanced further and faster than any similar subdivision” given that the concept was only formalised earlier this year.

With the committee she headed only formed in April 2021, Ms Gardiner said the former administration had completed the necessary legal steps to secure the land as well as the procurement/bidding process for architectural and infrastructure drawings.

Islands by Design, she added, was selected following a tendering process to conduct the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which was completed and submitted to the Department of Environmental Planning and Protection (DEPP) for its review.

“The DEPP completed its review and advised the Office of the Prime Minister on the eve of the general election that the environmentalists needed to augment the EIA with topography studies,” Ms Gardiner said.

To the Minnis administration’s critics and its opponents, the Prospect Ridge community was designed as a pre-election ploy to obtain votes. However, Ms Gardiner argued that it was designed to help rebuild our middle class” through being targeted at persons who she said were “over-qualified” for other government housing projects such as the Carmichael Village Subdivision.

“We structured this project in a unique way which makes home ownership affordable and accessible to a group previously sidelined,” she added. “If the Government does not complete the Prospect Ridge community or delays it considerably, that is entirely because they choose not to make housing/land ownership a reality for young Bahamian professionals.”

Ms Gardiner also told Tribune Business: “Those 1,500 applications were reviewed. There was an independent review done by accounting firms and that process was done to determine who actually qualified and that all of their documents were in order.

“The Environmental Impact Assessment for the project was completed and the first set of drawings for the community were done, but detailed architectural drawings were to be carried out next.”

She spoke out after JoBeth Coleby-Davis, minister of housing and transportation, indicated that the newly-elected Davis administration may adopt a different approach that would result in lot prices increasing for prospective buyers.

Under the Minnis administration, lot prices were to be discounted to levels around $40,000 to $50,000 so that buyers had increased equity to pledge to lenders as collateral for home construction loans. As a result, the Government would have absorbed a significant amount of the cost involved in putting in infrastructure and developing the community, essentially incurring a loss.

However, Mrs Coleby-Davis has indicated that buyers may have to pay more for their lots, although no details have been provided. She told the inaugural press briefing at the Prime Minister’s Office: “We’ve had a number of meetings related to this project with my technical team, and they also went out to do a site visit for me to determine where we are and how we could respond to the demands that presently exist and all of the applications that we presently have.

“Unfortunately there is a lot of ground work that must be done that has yet to be started as it pertains to that project... work as it pertains to a master plan. I’ve spoken to the company that was previously engaged by the former administration and absolutely nothing has been done yet.

“In fact, they got a letter notifying them that they have been awarded this project probably two or three days before the election. So nothing has been done in terms of creating a master plan to do the work at Prospect Ridge, to begin to draw out how it will actually look,” Mrs Coleby-Davis continued.

“There has been no feasibility study and no topography study to actually provide us with the lay of the land, and where the lumps and bumps presently exist and where we would have to fill it in. So we’re not in a position to determine the infrastructural cost. We think it will be great, but that is yet to be determined and we will get all of that information from the feasibility and topography study.”

The Government is now accepting bids to conduct these studies, Ms Coleby-Davis said, and the timeline for completion of this project is yet to be determined but the government is still moving ahead with it once the necessary works are carried out.

Ms Gardiner, though, added: “This project was done in an exceptionally short period of time. I think it was four to five months from inception to bring it to the public and, during that period of time, the EIA was executed and, right before the elections, the EIA was submitted to the Department of Environmental Planning and Protection.

“I cannot speak to what’s happened in the last four weeks, but just to let the public know that the architectural sketch-plan was a part of the environmental review and study and that was being done.”

With the EIA critical to project progress, Ms Gardiner explained: “There were discussions being had as to when there would be the public consultations coming out of the EIA, which is necessary for any approval to be given.

“Same thing with the party that was going to be doing the architectural and infrastructural design work. All of this was put into the public domain and, once you Google it, you will find it - the timelines on where the project was and what was being done.

“It wasn’t as if any of the applicants were not aware that the EIA was being done first, and that a proper procurement was being done on the party that would carry out the designs.”

Christine Wallace-Whitfield, president of the Bahamas Real Estate Association (BREA), said: “This is good news that the current government will keep this project. There are a lot of individuals and first-time homebuyers that are still hoping and wishing that they could have a chance at obtaining their dream.

“This is definitely a sigh of relief as a lot of people have done their due diligence and gotten all of their ducks in a row and gotten the finances sorted out, so I think going ahead this is definitely encouraging news.”