The Tribune

Outspoken attorney Fred Smith has urged the Government to fulfill its legal obligation to introduce a Land Use Plan (LUP) for New Providence, and called on it to stop behaving “like a dictatorship”.

Mr Smith, legal director for the Save The Bays (STB) group, said the creation of an LUP was mandated in the 2011 Planning and Subdivision Act, yet the current Government has sat through more than half its current term with producing one – or informing the public of when it plans to.

“The failure to fulfill a legal duty to introduce an LUP for New Providence is yet another example of the executive acting as if it can just ignore the legislature with impunity. We have three branches of government, all of equal consequence. The Prime Minister is not the king of the Bahamas,” Mr Smith said.

“Yet through successive governments, the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) has run this country as if it were a dictatorship, or some feudal aristocracy where those at the top can do as they please and answer to no one.”

Mr Smith compared the failure to enact an LUP to the failure of several parliamentarians to declare their assets in accordance with the Parliamentary Elections Act.

The attorney explained that an LUP would set rules and guidelines in an effort to make development in the Bahamas more rational, efficient and more ethical.

Most developed countries use land-use planning to protect natural resources, avoid potential land disputes and provide a vision for the orderly growth of neighbourhoods and communities, Mr Smith said.

“Currently, we live in the Wild Wild West of unregulated development, where wealthy foreigners can come in – with the acquiescence of government officials – and build however and whatever they see fit, no matter what the long-term consequences,” Mr Smith said.

He added that this frequently leads to monumental environmental destruction, a disregard for the traditional customs and culture of local communities, and causes social upheaval and economic uncertainty.

“Always, the politicians and developers promise us jobs, jobs, jobs, but too often these fail to materialise or prove to be unsustainable. Meanwhile, the question of what kind of Bahamas we are building for our children through these short-term, quick-fix solutions is hardly ever asked,” Mr Smith added.

“In the service of this system which benefits developers and politicians but leaves the average Bahamian, particularly in the Family Islands, out in the cold, the integrity of our legal system is being systematically eroded, to the point where Acts of Parliament can be ignored.”

Mr Smith said an LUP should be in place not just for New Providence but also the Family Islands. He added that the Local Government Act needs to be amended to give real power to local communities.

Each island, he said, should be able to envision and create its own future, with District Councils empowered to levy taxes, pass by-laws and enforce them, and control Town Planning and Crown Land use – just as in the country’s “more civilised neighbours”.

“The central government and the Office of the Prime Minister cannot keep riding roughshod over Family Islanders and treating them like colonies of Nassau, to be exploited for political gain or personal benefit, like rhe Colony of the Bahama Islands once was by England,” Mr Smith said.

He emphasised that in the Family Islands, where unregulated development is most rampant and the OPM’s power is near absolute – though exercised without legal basis – the rule of law is most seriously under threat.

“The PLP promised Local Government in the late 1960s but never delivered. The FNM promised it and mounted a pretence of Local Government, then over the years set about progressively clawing back what little authority it had granted and starving local officials of funding, making it almost meaningless,” Mr Smith said.

“Upholding the rule of laws like the Planning and Subdivisions Act and the Local Government Act – in both letter and spirit – is one of the central tenets of Save the Bays. We also want to see unregulated development brought to an end, as well as passage of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and a comprehensive Environmental Protection Act.”