The Tribune

On November 12, a revised proposal for a major $100 million development on Love Beach in western New Providence will go before a public meeting at Town Planning. The proposal calls for multi-storey buildings housing 121 condominiums to be constructed adjacent to the four small buildings of Palms of Love Beach on one of the finest stretches of soft powdery white sand in a near-urban environment anywhere in The Bahamas.

I know that beach well. I once lived at Palms of Love Beach and walked the beach every morning before work. But the issue at hand has little to do with the tranquility which I was fortunate enough to enjoy decades ago.

It has to do with the fight that is likely to ensue when backyard issues meet frontline politics.

What is being proposed is a scaled down version of a plan that was rejected earlier when nearby residents protested that it violated zoning regulations. Portions of the original plan, including a boutique hotel and over-water components, have been deleted and plans re-submitted. Project architect Sean Mathews told Tribune Business Editor Neil Hartnell in a story that appeared on October 28, 2020 that with people desperate for jobs, the plan should be approved and he’d “hate to see bureaucracy get in the way".

Mathews was correct about a need for jobs in an economy slashed by measures to control COVID-19, but others will ask jobs at what cost?

Those who live nearby already decry how fast Love Beach is growing now that its long-hidden beauty has been revealed. They believe the proposed project, The View at Love Beach Residences, is simply too big, the density too high, the shadows it will throw and how it will change the light, too great.

Even if the revised plan satisfies zoning regulations - which residents argue it does not because it exceeds the 28’ height restriction which the developer and architect argue with equal force does not exist - the reality is if the project is approved, it will dramatically alter their quiet, peaceful environment.

In simplest terms, it will change their lives in a way in which there is no going back.

Righteous indignation inspires courage. It gives the meek a voice they never knew they had.

In the late 1970s, I saw an entire city’s future change because of one woman and one backyard issue. Her name was Dorothy Wilken. Before the issue became an issue for her, she was, if I recall correctly, head of the art department at Florida Atlantic University, the mother of four daughters, and a neighbour. Her everyday, hard-working suburban life changed in a flash. The city of Boca Raton was about to annex her subdivision, University Park. Without strict zoning laws at the time, Boca Raton was primed to run the risk of being overgrown by a population descending on South Florida that had already swelled nearby towns like Deerfield Beach and Ft. Lauderdale, dotting them with flashing neon lights, heavy commercial footprint, houses squished together on top of one another, and no place to breathe.

Wilken was a believer in breathing space. She began speaking out to protect her own back yard which was then pretty much like countryside. Just her yard. That was all she wanted, a place for her four girls to be safe and play without massive shopping centres and dizzying traffic.

The more she spoke out about the right to govern your own living space, the more people listened. Wilken was elected (the first woman) to the Boca Raton City Council. She became the first woman mayor of the City of Boca Raton and led the fight all the way through the court system for the rights of a city to determine its own future when it comes to density. Wilken was stubborn. She was prepared to go all the way to the Supreme Court. Boca Raton looks different today from the surrounding cities because of her, because of one woman with a backyard issue who took it all the way to frontline politics.

Wilken was also a pragmatist. Once when I interviewed her for a story in the Palm Beach Post and asked her how she managed to run a university department, a growing city and a family with four teenage girls, she answered: “It’s easy. Anyone who can get a roast out of the oven at the same time the potatoes are done, the green beans are ready and everyone is ready to sit down at the table can do anything she sets her mind to.”

Wilken and I became friends. She has been to The Bahamas and stayed with us. The last I read the Sun-Sentinel was endorsing her for an important political post and her accolades and achievements were strung together like alphabet soup. In 1998, the Professional & Business Forum honoured her as Professional of the Year for Ethics, Values, Integrity and Excellence. She was a woman who got out in front of her back yard and took a stand.

So where did all that pork go when the hotels closed?

We didn’t stop to ask that question but Michie Lodge and the Lyford Cay Homeowners Association did. So they contacted pig farmers, including one who had been farming for 30 years, and asked what they have been doing with all the pork since most of their sales were to hotels.

For the past months, they have been buying more than 1200 pounds a week, turning it into pigs’ feet souse and distributing to those in need, providing hundreds of hot meals every week.

It’s part of the homeowners’ association’s campaign to encourage backyard farming and additional self-sustenance to replace heavy dependence on imported foods.