New Era clears the air on Caymanas development

BY PETRE WILLIAMS-RAYNOR Environment editor williamsp@jamaicaobserver.com

Monday, February 06, 2012

NEW Era Homes has insisted that at no time did it act to circumvent the environmental permitting and licensing process in its now controversial $9.2-billion Caymanas housing development.

Environment Watch broke the story last November that the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) — the agency with which New Era is undertaking the development — had earlier in the year sought and received a legal opinion from the solicitor general that gave them leave to bypass the stipulations of the Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA) Act in undertaking the development. This was based on provisions under the UDC Act.

That initial opinion prompted the Ministry of Environment — led at the time by Dr Horace Chang — to seek a second opinion from the attorney general, at which time it was held that the NRCA Act supersedes the UDC Act, and that no development is exempt from environmental considerations unless so specified in law.

"I don't think that New Era was ever trying to circumvent any authority, and we never sought any opinion from the solicitor general because we are a private developer...we were, at all times, guided by the UDC," Judith Haughton, attorney and sales manager for New Era, told the Observer on Friday.

"The bottom line is that this is a new development. The Caymanas Estate, we are the only ones out there... and so, in a sense, it is an emerging development area, and so you will have issues — legal issues and licensing issues and regulatory issues — that may arise. So I don't know that New Era actually sought the solicitor general's opinion. I just thought that since we were approached to develop the area, we were guided by whatever the UDC had indicated to us," she added.

With the new opinion in from the attorney general's chambers, the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) has required of New Era and the UDC documents on the project that, if approved, should see them receiving the requisite environmental licences and/or permits.

In the meantime, work on the 850 housing units — sited on 131 acres of land at Caymanas Estate — will continue. The development forms part of the UDC's larger Caymanas Industrial Park which is to see the development of some 500 acres of the Caymanas lands.

NEPA boss, Peter Knight, recently justified the agency's decision to have the development continue while the housekeeping matters are dealt with on grounds that the developers had proceeded on good faith, having been given the initial legal opinion.