Welcome to BEST

The Bermuda Environmental and Sustainability Taskforce (BEST) are concerned more about what is omitted by the just-published SDO for Southlands than be what is contained.

The most serious omission is that of the impact of this development when added to next door Atlantic Ltd. Development. The people depend on the government to consider the combined effects of neighbouring developments. It is totally unacceptable for the government to treat these adjacent developments as though there is no interaction, no combined impacts: environmental, visual, on traffic, on power supply and prices, on housing availability and prices, and on the cultural integrity of the neighbourhood.

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Response to Government’s announcement of the approval of an SDO for the Southlands development

Members of the Bermuda Environmental and Sustainability Taskforce (BEST) are outraged at the approval of a Special Development Order (SDO) for the Southlands development project. In March of 2007, Minister of the Environment Neletha Butterfield, made public a draft of the SDO and invited consultation – an action for which she deserved and received credit. The draft SDO was soundly discredited by planning, architectural and environmental experts. In addition, in the short period of time that was allowed for objection, thousands of island residents signed a petition against the SDO and hundreds marched in protest and sent letters of objection to both Minister Butterfield and Premier Brown.

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We believe a decision by the Minister of the Environment issuing an SDO for the Southlands development is imminent.

We urge you as members of the Bermuda public to voice your protest against this decision now by doing the following;

Here are some letters that have already been written and sent to the Minister of the Environment:Â

Dear Minister,
As a Bermudian I feel the development of any area of open space in Bermuda would be disastrous for our current population and devastating to the future of our island home. (more…)

The following is the transcript of a speech given by Mr. Rudolph Hollis (recent ex-Director for the Department of Planning) at the BEST public meeting on March 22nd, 2007.

I was invited to come this evening and speak. As a career Civil Servant, we are obviously taught and trained not to take things personally. When we assess applications, we have to be very open-minded and simply rely on our education, the policies of the day and precedence. In many cases you will get situations where you feel very personal about something, but you have to set that aside and simply deal with the facts as they are presented to you.

My presentation simply speaks to the SDO as it’s commonly known, and what I’d like to do is simply just to look at the facts as it relates to the SDO and not to be personal in terms of the actual development of the “Southlands” property. (more…)

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The following is a transcript of a speech given by David Wingate, at the B.E.S.T public meeting held at West Pembroke Primary School, on 22 March 2007.

Given the controversy surrounding the Southlands hotel proposal at present, a small group from the Bermuda National Trust, including myself, requested and was very kindly given a personal tour of the Southlands property by Mr. Chris Christenson, who is one of the entrepreneurs and who presently lives in the beautiful old Morgan House which he has been proudly restoring. Nestled against the hillside within a rural valley it has a commanding view of the sea and behind, on the hillside, we were given a tour of the old quarry gardens with their intricate maze of connecting paths that in some instances connect between the quarries with tunnels. The whole setting was magic, the very essence of the Bermuda image that we have traditionally projected for our tourist visitors. We all agreed, too, how wonderful if all this could become more accessible for both visitors and locals.

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Today was the deadline for any objections to the draft SDO for the Southlands Resort. BEST chairman Stuart Hayward presented more than 3,000 objections to the Minister of the Environment, Telecommunications and E-commerce including the “Save the South Shore” petition and many letters.

You can still sign the petition and write letters since the Minister will be taking a while to make her decision and although the time for official objections has now passed, expressing your opinions can still make a difference!

We’d like to give a big thanks to everyone who has written letters and/or signed the petition so far and especially to those of you who have gone out of your way to get others involved.

Below are some of the comments from the petition…

When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money. - Cree Native American prophecy.
Scott Tucker, Bermudian

If the people behind this proposed project can’t see how it will further damage Bermuda’s already fragile and diminishing beauty, no word of mine will persuade them. I just hope the sheer volume of signatures of those against it will persuade them instead.
Janet Wingate, Bermudian

Why when there are 4 sites that are EMPTY (Sonesta, Lantana, Club Med and Morgan’s Point) does a SDO need to be pushed through for this? Precious little open space is left on the island as it is.
John Williams, Bermudian.

It’s one of the last untouched parts of Bermy. Leave it Alone!
James Doughty, Bermudian

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The Greenrock website strips away any mystery about Special Development Orders (SDOs). Check it out here