The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A QC yesterday slammed “the complete and abysmal failure” of seven government departments and agencies to consult local residents over the Abaco Club’s proposed marina project.

Fred Smith QC, the Callenders & Co attorney and partner, told Tribune Business that such alleged episodes were akin to “a broken record that keeps repeating itself”, after the Supreme Court granted permission for another development-related Judicial Review to proceed.

Justice Petra Hanna-Weekes gave Responsible Development for Abaco (RDA), acting on behalf of Little Harbour residents, leave “to issue a motion seeking Judicial Review” of the Abaco Club’s proposed development.

“We are now going to move to have the matter heard as soon as possible,” Mr Smith said, while acknowledging that the Government ministers and agencies listed as respondents have six weeks to supply their evidence.

“We also gave the court an undertaking to serve Southworth Development with the filed motion, so they could move the court to seek to intervene or be heard on the Judicial Review.”

Southworth Development partnered with a group of existing Abaco Club homeowners to acquire the Winding Bay-based property in late 2014.

RDA initiated the proceedings on the grounds that both developer (the Abaco Club) and the Government have failed to engage in “adequate consultation” with residents and affected parties in Little Harbour.

Apart from the 44-slip private dock, the Abaco Club’s planned supporting facilities include a supplies shop, private restaurant and 6,000 square foot covered parking lot.

RDA fears that if the project goes ahead it will completely change the environment and character of Little Harbour, a 50-home community that runs almost entirely off solar power.

Mr Smith said the action was based on what he described as the Government’s consistent failure to properly consult local residents, and others, who will be most affected by development and infrastructure projects approved from afar in Nassau.

“This is another very basic case of a complete and abysmal failure on the part of seven government agencies to consult with the community that is affected by this,” he told Tribune Business.

There are nine government respondents to the Judicial Review, including Prime Minister Perry Christie; Deputy Prime Minister Philip Davis; Glenys Hanna Martin, minister of transport and aviation; Kenred Dorsett, minister of the environment; the Town Planning Committee; South Abaco District Council; Richard Hardy, acting director of Lands and Surveys; and Marques Williams, Abaco’s port administrator.

The Government is likely to be thoroughly sick of the Judicial Review initiatives brought by Mr Smith and his various clients, which they have already tried to paint as a deliberate effort to undermine the Government and Bahamian state.

Mr Smith yesterday compared the Little Harbour case to both RDA’s first-ever Judicial Review action, involving BEC’s Wilson City power plant, and the recent success he and fellow attorney, Carey Leonard, enjoyed in challenging the consultative process over the proposed Hawksbill Creek Agreement reforms.

Arguing that RDA, a community partner of Save the Bays, was standing up for “natural justice and respect for local rights”, Mr Smith added: “The people of Little Harbour are not telling the Government and developer what to do.

“They just have a right to be consulted.... For the life of me, I cannot understand why successive government departments and regulatory agencies, and foreign developers, can’t understand the very fundamental and basic principal of consultation with their neighbours and the people most affected by their projects.

“It is so basic as to be mind-boggling, and is respected more in the breach than in the observance,” Mr Smith added. “This is all becoming the sound of a broken record that just keeps repeating itself.

“Foreign developers keep finding these sweet little spots in the Bahamas that seduce them. All they have to do is work with the locals rather than fight them.

“As with the BEC power plant case, the Government and developer may find that the locals have some meaningful, positive and sensible contributions to make.

“RDA and Save the Bays are not opposed to development. They just want to have proportionate, consultative and sustainable development that respects local rights, the environment, culture and society. That’s all.”

Tribune Business reported on Monday how the Abaco Club’s principal had accused some Little Harbour residents of seeking to “incite confrontation” against him over the controversial marina.

David Southworth cited this as the principal reason why he broke off all contacts with the Little Harbour Property Owners Association (ALHPO) just six weeks after meeting them to initiate a public consultation process over the facility in 2015.

His decision to sever all ties drew a predictably negative response from Little Harbour residents, who are accusing the Abaco Club of seeking “to monopolise 40-50 per cent of the navigable water” in their harbour with the proposed marina.