On Friday in special session, the House of Assembly passed the Park Hyatt Act, which will enable the former Club Med property to be redeveloped.

The bill will be debated today in the Senate, and if it passes there, will be enacted into law, thus clearing the way for the developer to sign a lease and raise the necessary financing for the $298 million development.

The main area of concern with this long awaited development is the almost unprecedented length of the lease being offered for the condominium segment of the property.

The condominiums will receive a 131-year lease with an option for the owner to renew for another 131 years – effectively taking the property out of public hands for 262 years, or until 2270, when we will all be long forgotten and Bermuda will certainly be a very different place.

Evidently, the reason for such a long lease concerns the need to sell the condos to private buyers, who can buy condominiums built on private land for as much as 999 years. A 99-year lease would make the Club Med condos less attractive. And one would assume that the entire financial viability of the hotel development will rest on the condo sales.

On the face of it, that makes sense, but in all of these matters, the devil is in the details.

That is why an Opposition amendment requiring the Government to bring the lease itself back to Parliament is right.

This was rejected in the House on an 18-13 roll call vote which followed party lines, with the Government arguing that the requirement would cause further delay on the project.

That may be so. But that does not make it right. Bermuda has already had bitter experience with one lease being agreed and then torn up to the benefit of the developer. For that reason alone, and this has nothing to do with developer Carl Bazarian's integrity, the public has the right to know that what is agreed over Club Med is in the public's interest, and only one institution has that responsibility with regard to public land – and that's Parliament.

Shadow Education Minister Dr. Grant Gibbons also raised the question of rent, which at $250,000 a year works out to about $2,000 an acre, or $166.67 an acre per month. That looks like a screaming deal, and tends to offset Mr. Bazarian's claims about being unable to compete with other developments, which more often than not have had to pay for the land (at $1 million or more an acre) on which they build condominiums.

It has been noted that it is critical that Bermuda finally gets a deal done for this property, both for its symbolic importance and because, with the world's credit markets now in utter turmoil, it may be that no one else will have the stomach for it right now.

That may be so as well. But Bermuda cannot afford to get this wrong either. It is absolutely essential that whatever development occurs in St. George's benefits the public, and especially the people of St. George's, and not just the developer.

It is vitally important that Senators today consider this legislation carefully and put the public interest first.

Assuming that the United Bermuda Party puts forward the amendment requiring the lease to be brought to Parliament, the Senate should support it, and not, as Sen. David Burch said yesterday in a different context, give in to ultimatums.