Persistent delays which have plagued the Baker’s Bay Golf and Ocean Club on Guana Cay, Abaco have resulted in a number of Bahamians who were working on that project being laid off, a company official has confirmed.
According to Baker’s Bay Senior Vice President of Environmental and Community Affairs Dr. Livingston Marshall, the halt of work on certain key aspects of the development has had an adverse effect on several entities which were contracted to provide services associated with those elements.
“We have contractors that are doing various components of our work and those contractors have somewhat of a separate arrangement apart from the Baker’s Bay project,” said Dr. Marshall.
“Those contractors come in and hire individuals based upon the work that they are to perform and if, for example, they are not able to perform any excavation, dredging or construction then of course they couldn’t proceed with the hiring of individuals and in some cases they did lay off some of their employees. The numbers that I saw last was that as of the end of December last year that number was expected to reach about 33.”
Developers of the Baker’s Bay resort have been embroilled in a dispute for a number of months with the Save Guana Cay Association, a grouping of individuals and organisations opposed to the project.
The association’s fight against the development appeared to have come to an end last May when Supreme Court Justice Stephen Isaacs dismissed its application for an injunction on the ground that the Save Guana Cay Association did not have standing before the court, as it was neither a landowner nor a resident with any interest directly affected by the development.
The protracted dispute between the developers of the project and those opposed to it received new life, however, when an appeal by the association succeeded and the Court of Appeal ruled in November that the matter should be remitted to the Supreme Court to be heard on its merits.
At that time, the court also accepted an undertaking by the Baker’s Bay developers that they would not cut, tear down or remove any vegetation or trees; disturb or remove any mangrove or wetlands; erect any further building or structures on the land; or construct or pave new roads while the matter was outstanding.
The Supreme Court hearing is scheduled to take place before the end of this month.
Following the decision by the Court of Appeal, the developers did indicate, however, that they would continue ancillary activities, including marketing and planning for the $500 million resort.
As part of that campaign, the golf and ocean club circulated an advertisement in the daily newspapers last week in which it maintained that the Baker’s Bay project is an environmentally sound one that is good for Guana Cay.
“We have always felt strongly that a project of this type and of this nature deserves to be shared with the Bahamian people because we believe very strongly that we are taking novel approaches to development in The Bahamas and indeed in the region,” Dr. Marshall told The Bahama Journal.
“So we have always had a very strong sense of mind about the communication of what we are trying to do. (The recent advertisement) is just our ongoing and continuing effort to communicate to the Bahamian people what is happening at Baker’s Bay.”
The advertisement indicated that the Baker’s Bay project is being developed on 585 acres, of which 460 acres is private land.
It further indicated that over 50 percent of the 105 acres of Crown land included in the project will be held in a preserve for all Bahamians, and the remaining land will be leased by the developer on market terms.
The ad also claimed that a $10 million expenditure by developers on infrastructure and community buildings would benefit the entire settlement of Great Guana Cay.
By: Darrin Culmer, The Bahama Journal
