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The struggle for Robin’s Bay
- Residents want eco-land trust
- Developer wants ‘glass and steel’
By Avia Ustanny, freelance journalist
Kingston, 16 January 2006 (Panos) - Robins Bay, a curvaceous piece of land that dips its skirts into the sea on the northern shores of St. Mary, is like a woman being hotly pursued by more suitors than she can handle.
On the one hand are the locals, mostly nature loving Rastafarians and their families, who have farmed the land for decades and have made a living by offering tour guide services to visitors.
On the other there is a developer, who has expressed interest in bringing to the sleepy Bay luxurious accommodations with features that local residents say will spoil their way of life and rob them of their means of earning a living.
In an effort to block British-based developer - Losville Bevett of Los Villeage Resort – the residents are seeking money from international environmental interests to develop an eco-tourism industry in their community. Funds to the tune of US$40 million, they say, will provide the means to buy local land and block efforts to develop the envisaged four-star resort property and water park in their community.
Several residents have been served eviction notices. They have taken action, hiring local lawyer Antoinette Haughton-Cardenas to serve a claim of adverse possession on their behalf.
In the meantime, British developer Losville Bevett is advertising his Robins Bay, Los Villeage resort, which is proposed to feature “120 new rooms, two spectacular penthouse restaurants on an eight storey complex set in five acres of secluded coastline.”
The resort is described on the website www.losvilleage.com as “a fusion of glass and steel. Los Villeage Casino Resort will become St Mary's only full-service resort offering casino with all the amenities of a modern, upscale resort, and home to the most stylishly decorated, eco friendly rooms in the region and 270 degree panoramic views over Robins Bay.” The property is set to be located, “just eight minutes from Boscobel (Ocho Rios) Aerodrome, 15 minutes from Ocho Rios.”
No Licenses
Research has shown that until now, no approval for construction plans has been sought from the St. Mary Parish Council and no permits or environmental impact studies for the multimillion dollar, five acre project have been completed.
According to Zadie Neufville of the National Environment Planning Agency (NEPA) in Kingston, NEPA has not received an application from Los Villeage. “…the agency is making every effort to inform the persons mentioned on the website, that environmental permits and/or licenses will be required for this development,” Neufville said, while noting that construction has not started yet.
Where the Parish Council is concerned, the residents of Robins Bay may find themselves in a race against time. “It’s first come, first serve,” says Councillor Eyon Palmer, from the Parish Council. “The residents do not want the high rise development, but the Parish Council is looking for business and any development that comes to the area will be good.”
But friends and residents of the community are putting things in place to forward the agenda of the community.
One such friend is Dan Glazer, retired Attorney-at-Law from Los Angeles, California and frequent visitor to Robins Bay. He has hired local Attorney-at-Law, Antoinette Haughton-Cardenas on the resident’s behalf and has also launched the website www.abrahamia.com in protest.
“Robins Bay is an ecological treasure,” he says. “It is the only place in Jamaica where there are large areas of undisturbed rain forest, miles of pristine coastline with living coral.”
According to the lawyer, there are locations closer to Annotto Bay, which are more appropriate for the construction of a resort of the nature of Los Villeage.
Robins Bay and its environs, he says, an area of 15 miles of coast and 20,000 acres of land, "offers the opportunity for backpacking through a pristine environment from the mountain to the sea."
Destroying a way of life
For the residents of Robin Bay, the issue is not only an environmental one. The construction of the resort would see changes to a way of life, which is nearly a century old.
Fats, an aging farmer who claims to have lived in Robins Bay from before he was eight years old, says that Robins Bay was the squatter community which for many decades provided labour for the Sheerness and Greenacres estates.
“A lot of them (squatters) parents died looking after the land. The people who are here so long should get first preference for a house spot. That is where I see justice,” the farmer said.
His neighbour, thirty one year old Aston Blackstone, a tour guide and scuba diver who received an eviction notice in April 2005, adds, “the whole community live off the land.”
Along with his friend, 37-year old Jah Fred, Blackstone has constructed a one-room bungalow which is rented to visitors. Visitors are taken on walking and horseback tours as well as snorkeling dives by Jah Fred, Blackstone and others who make their living in this way.
The self-styled tour guides have expressed optimism about the prospect of creating an eco-land trust, to pursue an alternative model of community-based development.
Right to land
The legal action of Robins Bay residents began in April 2005 when eight of them were served with eviction notices. Residents, many of whom claim to have resided in the area for over two decades, argue that they had the right to remain and also to participate and benefit from any new development in the area.
Antoinette Haughton-Cardenas, legal representative of the eight people given eviction notices, states that people who have lived on the property for a very long time have “a very good case of adverse possession. If you live on land for thirteen years or more, openly, then you can apply for title for land. Our clients are in that position."
“We have filed a claim, declaring that these people are the owners of the pieces they have lived on and farmed,” the attorney says. While her office has experienced some difficulty in locating the proprietors listed on the title, the attorney says that help had been recently obtained in serving the claim.
There is some level of cynicism among residents about the outcome of proceedings. Fats, the farmer from Robins Bay says, “They don’t want to sell land to poor people because we do not have the cash to give them.”
At the end of a rutted road which girdles the western end of the Bay is Charley’s Place, a guest house and fruit shop run for over twenty years by 42 year old Linton Phillips. Phillips calls himself the chief lifeguard of Robins Bay and is also a guide for hikes to Black Sand Beach.
In his opinion, Los Villeage is a nightmare waiting to happen. “The whole thing is not good. This (area) should just stay nature wise. We do not need the hotel. The whole community is a hotel. We just need the people.”
Dan Glazer states that he has every confidence that interests exist which will buy into the alternative concept of Robins Bay as a world-class eco-tour attraction. The ballpark figure of US$40 million is what he estimates it would cost to buy land in the area, much of which is currently up for sale, as a first step towards establishing the attraction.
“The environmental trust is what everyone wants,” Operator of Sonrise Beach Retreat in Robins Bay, Kim Chase, says.
Chase also claims that she is in e-mail contact with the Los Villeage’s developer in the UK. She said that the owner is willing to meet with residents to hammer out a compromise.
But, so far, no one had seen either Bevett himself or his representatives.
According to Ainsley James of Babi’s Restaurant and Bar in the Bay, “they don’t involve us. We only hear that the resort is coming. We don’t see the owner. We would like to see them and hear what they plan to do for the area.”
Brigitta Cox, owner of the River Lodge, which rests on the edge of the disputed territory, is very optimistic about the success of the eco-trust.
“I have contacts with members of the Green Party in Germany who say they are willing to put money into this if it is something which is backed by the government,” she says.
But Angie Dickson, business development manager at the nearby Green Castle organic farm makes another important point.
“We do not have any real proof that a four star hotel is going into the area. But, we are hoping that anyone who is interested in such a development will collaborate with community members in creating something which is good for the environment and community at the same time.”
Green Castle would benefit from a model of community-based tourism.
“We have just started to offer tours to visitors and Jamaicans which allows them to see what organic farming is like in Jamaica,” says Dickson. “It gives people a chance to see a different side of Jamaica and to understand how things are done here. It is also a good educational opportunity for students.”
Meanwhile, Bevett and his project remains a mystery. The developer, according to information on his website, is a partner with Global Construction, a company “with over 40 years combined industry experience of design, building and project management supported by a global network of international teams and associates in Europe, the Caribbean Islands, and America.”
Locals for whom his proposed resort represents a threat to their way of life, and local officials from whom approval has not been sought, would like to know more.
Attorney at Law George Magnus of the firm Abendana and Abendana in Ocho Rios is the legal representative of Robins Bay landowner Don Silvera, who resides in California. He says that he knows nothing about any eviction notice given to squatters on coastal lands in Robins Bay.
He said that there has been some argument between Silvera and squatters in the Nutfield area on the hill, but that the landowner is willing to give them time to pay for the land.
Where Losville Bevett is concerned, the lawyer said that the developer had expressed interest in purchasing eight acres of coastal property and had made a deposit in 2005. However, since the deposit was made (eight months ago), nothing further has been heard from him.
“Bevett has not signed the contract yet. The full deposit has been paid but there is no contract,” the attorney at law said.
But the issue is one on which environmentalists are keeping a close eye.
“Recent flooding in Jamaica and in other countries have shown that there are human costs to ignoring the environment. We think that the idea of Los Villeage is a disastrous one. High-rise development is inappropriate for the area. Robins Bay needs low impact development,” says Diana McCauley of the Jamaica Environmental Trust (JET).
According to the environmentalist, Robins Bay is one of over fifty areas in Jamaica in need of being identified and declared as a protected area. It also requires the development and implementation of a development plan.
The environmentalist stated that the idea of an environmental land trust is a worthy one and that residents should organize themselves as a first step towards making their dreams come true.
According to attorney at law Antoinette Haughton-Cardenas, who hails from St. Mary, “Robins Bay has some of the most beautiful coastlines. The whole nation should move in the direction of making Jamaica a green space with a new kind of community-driven tourism whereby ordinary citizens will benefit.
“We do not want another Montego bay. We do not need the chrome and glass tourism here,” she says.
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