The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Resorts World’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) ignores the need to obtain Planning and Subdivision Act approval for its $10-$15 million Bimini cruise ship project, a leading QC yesterday accusing the Government and developers of “bulldozing their way through” the permitting process.

Fred Smith, the Callenders & Co attorney and partner, told Tribune Business that the Planning and Subdivisions Act required EIAs to be released for public consultation before decisions to approve major development projects were made.

The EIA for Resorts World’s project lists 10 different permits that are required for construction to proceed, but makes no mention of any approvals related to the Planning and Subdivisions Act, which was passed by the former FNM government.

Suggesting that the Christie administration has “decided to ignore” the legislation, Mr Smith said: “The most obvious permit application they have missed is that requirement under section 14 of the Planning and Subdivision Act, which requires an EIA to go for public consultation before a decision is made.”

Confirming that he has now been instructed by two environmental organisations, Save the Bays and Bimini Blue Coalition, to draw up a Judicial Review challenge to halt the Resorts World project, Mr Smith added that the Act also required the director of physical planning to stop construction work that did not have the necessary approvals.

Confirming that the Judicial Review challenge will aim to force the director to do exactly that, Mr Smith added: “There has not been a process under the Planning and Subdivision Act.”

This same issue came up in the recent controversy over the $5 million Blackbeard’s Cay project, where environmental organisation, reearth, alleged that the Government then, too, had failed to follow its own much-trumpeted Planning and Subdivisions Act.

In particular, she pointed out the requirement to hold public meetings for major developments and land use plan changes - something that seems not to have happened in the case of both Bimini and Blackbeard’s Cay.

The EIA’s list of permits required by the developers include approval by the Bahamas Environment, Science and Technology (BEST)and the Port Authority Approval, plus a building permit. The latter includes Town Planning, Environmental Health, Civil Works and Structural Approvals.

An excavation permit is also required, along with approvals from the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC), Water and Sewerage Corporation (WSC) and Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC). It is unclear whether any, or all, of these have been obtained to-date.

Mr Smith, meanwhile, backed Bahamas National Trust (BNT) president Neil McKinney over his assertion that there were “judicial precedents establishing the legal requirements that there must be consultation with parties that are affected before decisions are made, not after”.

“This is why I keep saying the Government is ignorant, and continues to make decisions before consultation,” the well-known QC added.

“The Government continues to prefer form over substance. They have no intention of engaging stakeholders in the decision-making process.”

Mr Smith said the Judicial Review cases he brought over the Baker’s Bay project on Guana Cay, and the Wilson City power plant, had established “consultation with affected parties is a pre-requisite before permits are given.

“Any permit process that does not provide consultation is likely to be set aside by Judicial Review. It is beyond belief that in 2013, after Guana Cay and other cases, that both the FNM and PLP continue to ignore the courts, which have firmly established the right to consultation before decisions are made.”

Mr Smith said the manner in which the Christie administration had handled the Bimini EIA “underscores the failure of the Government to understand what an EIA process is.

“It is not a finite document; it is intended to be an iterative process between stakeholders to determine the extent of potential environmental impacts, how they can be mitigated, and take into account the views of those affected, including environmentalists, and help educate policymakers to make informed decisions,” Mr Smith added.

The EIA was released to the public after the Government had already given Resorts World construction approval, with the document’s October 4 date suggesting the developer was mobilising both prior to its completion and BEST approvals.

“It is perverse to have made the decision, given the permits and enter into a Heads of Agreement, effectively bulldozing your way through before engaging the public on the issues contained in an EIA,” the QC said.

“An EIA is not an end in and of itself. It is part of an effort to engage stakeholders.”

The timeline of events, Mr Smith added, showed the Government was “shoving decisions down the throats” of those most affected.

“It’s a backwards, ignorant and potentially volatile approach,” he added. “You have a situation now where the EIA is published and it’s too late.

“I ask the question, as I did at the Town Meeting held by BEC on its Wilson City Power Plant in Abaco: Have all the permits been properly applied for; have all the relevant government statutory bodies and administrative bodies informed the public with sufficient information, so informed deliberations can occur?

“Have permits been applied for? When were they applied for? Were affected parties given an opportunity to be heard?”

Mr Smith added that the Bahamas showed disrespect for its own environment by failing to insist that development projects follow processes laid down in statute law.

“I continue to say that developers from abroad would never get away with what they get away with in the Bahamas,” the QC told Tribune Business.

“Our politicians fail to understand that most foreign developers are quite content to go through permitting processes just like they would in their home countries.”

And he added: “Bahamian politicians are the worst enemy of the Bahamian people and the environment. We our own worst enemy.”