Peter Nygard
By RASHAD ROLLE
Tribune Staff Reporter
rrolle@tribunemedia.net
INTERNATIONAL interest in the future of Clifton Bay is rising as Save the Bays intends to file legal action against the government today, seeking judicial review of its public consultation process over Peter Nygard’s proposed expansion plans for Simms Point/Nygard Cay.
The legal action follows the government’s June 18 announcement that a 21-day public consultation period on the fashion mogul’s applications for his proposed expansion plans will take place.
The environmental group insists the announcement has been futile because the government has not disclosed enough information about the applications to enable residents to respond in a
relevant manner.
Over the weekend, reputed international newspapers and magazines such as the UK’s The Guardian and Germany’s Der Spiegel published stories about the impending legal battle, portraying the issue as a fight among environmentalists, the Bahamas government and Mr Nygard over a scenic area that has featured prominently in several major films, including a James Bond movie.
On Saturday The Guardian wrote: “They provided the stunning setting for a Bond and a Jaws film, and the 1960s Flipper TV series about a super-intelligent bottlenose dolphin. But today the beaches and azure waters of Clifton Bay in the Bahamas are at the centre of a real-life drama that would surely compete with anything Hollywood could invent. The sprawling development of the peninsular home of the billionaire fashion tycoon Peter Nygard and his plans to build a stem cell research centre there, not least due to the 71-year-old’s interest in keeping ever youthful, are said by a campaign group to be threatening an environmental calamity on one of the world’s most beautiful coastlines.”
The consultation period on Mr Nygard’s applications is set to end on Wednesday.
Fred Smith, Save the Bay’s attorney, told The Tribune yesterday: “I am thrilled that the world at least sees value in the Bahamas. It is ironic that our own politicians have such little regard for the Bahamas that they continue to sacrifice our environment at the altar of the almighty foreign dollar. The government promised to reply to our request for further information (on Nygard’s plans) by Friday of last week.
“In true form, as has happened in Guana Cay, Blackbeard’s Cay, Wilson City Power Plant and the first Nygard case, the government has remained secretive. As a result, Save the Bays has no alternative but to launch a new judicial review to challenge this flawed and secretive, hypocritical consultation process. That case will be issued to try and prevent decisions being made without giving Save the Bays an opportunity to participate in a meaningful and sensible way.”
He added: “Crown land is for the benefit of the Bahamas, not for people like Peter Nygard. In Guana Cay, the government gave crown land away to foreigners for $1 an acre and they are reselling it at $5 million dollars a parcel. In addition, Bahamians are squeezed in the centre of Guana Cay with no room for the settlement to expand with two foreign projects taking up all the rest of the Crown land; so too at Clifton where the government wants to stop public access along the north side of Simms Point and give $35 million of crown land beach to Nygard.
Referencing a recently disclosed 1992 letter from Mr Nygard to Prime Minister Perry Christie, who was then the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Smith said: “Crown land is not there to be given away for political favours and Nygard thinks the Prime Minister owes him as was his claim in the 1992 letter. This is exactly the kind of stuff that the US State Department was talking about in its 2014 investment report, corruption being embedded in the body politic.”
A town meeting on the issue is scheduled for 7.30 tonight at the BCPOU Hall on Farrington Road and Joseph Darville, Save The Bay’s director of education is urging all Bahamians to attend. “There are so many issues of public importance – from industrial pollution to unregulated development – going on at Clifton,” he said. “The future of this unique cultural and environmental treasure should matter not just to New Providence residents, but every citizen of the Bahamas.”
Comments
TalRussell 10 years, 4 months ago
A perfectly timed live talk show radio interview with ZNS's "back in the PLP saddle" Comrade Darrold Miller live at this very moment carrying the water bucket for Nygard, during his interview.with the controversial foreigner. What a total extension of a dedicated PLP propaganda "ZNS bucket of a suck ass" you are Comrade Darrold.
TalRussell 10 years, 4 months ago
My bad Comrades. Far from a live interview but a well orchestrator, prerecorded/filmed PR interview. Comrades how in the hell can you take the "people's ZNS" and turn it into FREE propaganda of hours of some info commercial - just ahead of a public protest against a controversial foreigner? Shame on you ZNS, Shame on you PM. Shame on you Darrold, as a taxpayers worker.. Unless the Comrades up at ZNS, can show the newsworthiness of this abuse of the people/s airwaves - Bahamalanders marsh to demand the firing all involved in this shamefully, blatantly PLP political abuse.
justthefactsplease 10 years, 4 months ago
Tal ... is that REALLY you or is someone using your handle? If it is REALLY you, it is indeed refreshing to see that you are not too PLP to be Bahamian.
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 4 months ago
It's exactly the same tactic they use for the referendum...
asiseeit 10 years, 4 months ago
The man broke the law, simple as that. Here in the Bahamas he will be rewarded for breaking the law. That is just how stupid this nation is, simple really. Our supposed leaders will sweep this travisty under the rug and bemoan that they are being picked on because everyone is out to get them. Hollywood could not make this foolishness up, what a comedy of dunces.
justthefactsplease 10 years, 4 months ago
It is difficult for them to do anything else based on their record ... more than half of those in the House and Senate are law breakers themslves for not having filed their returns and they and deep under the covers with another set of law breakers; the gambling mafia; so they are unable to see any wrong. They are a bunch of rudderless ars@#oles with absolutely no moral fibre or direction.
Tarzan 10 years, 4 months ago
This comment is idiotic. You as a Bahamian should be anything but bored. This is about the selling of your heritage for a few pieces of sliver.
TalRussell 10 years, 4 months ago
Comrade Just the facts, even a Comrade Tal knows when an action by Darrold and the entire ZNS team have become much too politically well acted animated are deserving of the peoples contempt. Nothing funny about this taxpayers ZNS well staged Nygard sit-in.
Tarzan 10 years, 4 months ago
Right on Tal. No one can doubt your bona fides in objecting to this sell out of Bahamian heritage.
bahamasmeng 10 years, 4 months ago
Why every1 so busy bashing Peter Nygard when he's been good to our people and our economy? He is a saint to us all
lawrence 10 years, 4 months ago
Nobody is talking heritage when our heritage and local dollars grow from the donations of men like Peter Nygard?!!!
Let's think about the good he has done!
digimagination 10 years, 4 months ago
Definition of a Cay: A cay (also caye or key) is a small, low-elevation, sandy island formed on the surface of a coral reef. Cays occur in tropical environments throughout the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans (including in the Caribbean and on the Great Barrier Reef and Belize Barrier Reef), where they can provide habitable and agricultural land for hundreds of thousands of people. Their surrounding reef ecosystems also provide food and building materials for island inhabitants.
A cay is formed when ocean currents transport loose sediment across the surface of a reef to a depositional node, where the current slows or converges with another current, releasing its sediment load. Gradually, layers of deposited sediment build up on the reef surface. Such nodes occur in windward or leeward areas of reef where surfaces sometimes occur around an emergent outcrop of old reef or beach rock. Nygard's 'land' increment was done by pumping sand from the waters on North side into purpose-built sand traps on the South side of his property - hardly the 'natural way'!
Nygard's property, being very much attached to the main body of New Providence, is NOT a cay by any stretch of the imagination. Being located at the Westernmost point of NP it was known as Simms Point. So call it Nygard(s) Point... but Nygard Cay? C'mon now how much did he pay Christie (then a junior minister) for the name change back in 1984? Did I hear $42,000.00 (quite a lot of lolly back in the day)!
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