Log In

Reset Password
BERMUDA | RSS PODCAST

City: No plans drawn up for waterfront

First Prev 1 2 Next Last
City of Hamilton Mayor Graham Outerbridge and Deputy Mayor Donal Smith, listen to councillor Keith Davis speak about projects under development while on stage in City Hall during a town-hall meeting (photo by Glenn Tucker)

No plans have been drawn up for the redevelopment of the Hamilton waterfront, according to the Corporation of Hamilton.Common Councillor Keith Davis, speaking at a town-hall meeting in the Earl Cameron Theatre yesterday, said: “There are absolutely no plans drawn to date of what that city waterfront will look like in the future.“We came to the public, in this building in this room on January 28 of this year, and we made an announcement that we are partnering with a development team to actually get that process going.“The city has submitted to the Department of Planning an in-principle Environmental Impact Study. That is a document that was created some years ago and we received feedback, the previous council received feedback from the Department on some other information that was required to resubmit that document.“We have done that. What this document simply states is what would be the impact to our economy, to our society and to our environment if we were to develop the waterfront. It does not speak specifically to any particular design but development in general.”He stated that Government has all of the documents it needs from the City to “contemplate what has been acted upon to date”, and the Corporation is actively looking to move forward with the project.“You will hear more about that as we move forward, and we will engage all of you, our entire country, as we come up with a vision, a concept, a working plan as to what Bermuda would like to see on our waterfront for now and well into the future,” he said.However he also noted the idea of modernising the waterfront is not a new idea, with past councils discussing redevelopment since 1967 with little success.Mr Davis also touched on the issue of the proposed St Regis hotel in the city, set to be erected on the site of the Par-La-Ville parking lot.“The new developers are working constantly with City Hall and the Bermuda Government in making this a reality. We met with the Ministry as recently as [Monday] to get an update on where things stand,” he said.“The last time we had a town-hall meeting was about March of this year. We had hoped to be able to have had an announcement by today that we are ready to roll, but these things are very complex, very technical, especially when you are working with folks not just here in Bermuda.“In the near future, hopefully in a matter of months, we hope to come to the Bermuda public and make a grand announcement that the project is indeed ready to get underway.”

No plans: Councillor Keith Davis speaks at last night's town-hall meeting (Photo by Glenn Tucker)