Stamp duty on waterfront real estate should be raised to 12.5% as it was many years ago. The first public consultations for the ‘ PlanCayman‘ project, which will focus on the Seven Mile Beach corridor, will start sometime this summer, but planning for the West Bay area will not start until 2023.
DOES FREDDIE MAC ALLOW A LIMITED CONDO REVIEW FOR ATTACHED PROJECTS UPDATE
Furthermore, the much hoped for update to the development plan is also unlikely to resolve any of the issues that are fuelling runaway development on this and many other stretches of coastline on Grand Cayman any time soon. Those West Bay residents who made it clear in their submission to planning ten years ago what they did and did not want for future development of the district are likely to be disappointed as further development applications in the area, likely to create more friction with existing residents, continue. The developer said that they made the adjacent landowners well aware of their plans and dispute that it came as a surprise. The developer behind Serrana has defended the project stating that it is well within the planning law regulations and disputing that there will be any adverse affects to the environment. Objectors then only get a very brief window of opportunity to challenge a development, since notices that actually get to the right people are often so late that they arrive very close to the deadline to object.Īlthough Crowe and his family now face myriad issues relating to the Serrana project, the planning department has told him there is nothing they can do to address his grievances. Aside from a classified ad in the back page of a print newspaper, developers are only required to send out notifications by mail.
The department has also stated that they do not accept responsibly for that, maintaining that the onus is on residents to update addresses relating to landowners.īut it is understood that this is not an isolated incident when it comes to alerting owners, with planning passing on very old information to developers.
It has since emerged that very old addresses had been passed on by planning to the developers regarding the notifications. The Department of Environment had also urged against granting planning permission to allow the developers to fill in the ironshore, but the CPA ignored their advice.Ĭrowe has said that his family did not received a notification from the planning department, as required by law. When work there began, residents said it came as a complete surprise to them, including Marlon Crowe and his family, the neighbouring landowners, who are also being directly impacted by the construction of a 5-storey condo complex that will soon loom over the family home. Instead, the district has seen a rapid change, with continued luxury level development on the shoreline that is being sold largely to overseas investors, as most of the new projects are too costly for many Caymanians and long-term residents.Īt a recent local meeting, concerns about development featured prominently, especially the controversial situation at Serrana, another new luxury condo complex on North West Point. The committee also found that the community wanted to see tourism-related developments that enhance the appeal of West Bay without depriving the district of its small-scale social and physical attractiveness. In the report, residents made it clear that they wanted to retain the district’s natural environment.Ī decade ago they called for sustainable development that would preserve ocean views along the coastline and undeveloped beaches, and for no development on the ocean-side of the road, allowing future development on the land-side only. In 2011 a report was compiled by a West Bay committee established to find out what people wanted in regards to future development of the district and to inform the review of the national development plan, which later emerged as ‘ PlanCayman‘. Since then, West Bayers have seen the area change dramatically, and having already lost sight of the coastline, they are now losing access to it as well. Although a $12 million proposal by NWPR Group Ltd was rejected by the Central Planning Authority in April because the “mass, scale and height of the proposed development” were not compatible with the adjacent properties, at least two more sets of plans for 5-storey condo buildings have been submitted already this month for this stretch of coast.Īlthough the area has long been zoned beach-tourism, the height restrictions were increased to five storeys in 2012.
(CNS): The North West Point coastline has been rapidly developed over the last two years, including a number of controversial projects, and more appear to be on the way.