Hotels were willing to compromise with Planning officers to get the best results from the Bermuda Plan 1992.

And the hotels will definitely benefit on the whole from the decisions of Objections Tribunal into the plan, published this week.

Attempting to remain as consistent as possible, the tribunal encouraged discussion between the Planning Department and the hotels.

Originally there were 1,188 objections to the 1992 Bermuda Plan. Of those 843 were resolved without a hearing and 86 withdrawn.

It left 259 objections to be dealt with by the objections tribunal chaired by Mr. Jack Lightbourn.

The idea of the plan was to zone the Island into different areas, including residential, nature reserve, agricultural, open space, industrial and tourism.

The Planning Department made recommendations on each of the objection sites and then the tribunal heard the case of the objectors as well as visiting each of the sites around the Island.

Mr. Lightbourn said that most decisions were made immediately after the many meetings over the last year and 85 percent were unanimous.

The tribunal followed the planners' recommendations on around 46 percent of the decisions, following the views of the objectors about half as many times.

About 13 percent of the decisions taken were cases where the tribunal gave decisions which were a mixture of the wishes of the planners and the objectors.

But in 18 percent of the decisions the Department of Planning had already met with objectors and agreed to certain changes in the Bermuda Plan to make the system run smoothly.

Hotels involved in these compromise decisions included Cambridge Beaches, Christian Bay Beach Club, the Southampton Princess, Pompano Beach Club, Ariel Sands Beach Club and Marriott's Castle Harbour.

In fact, the Planning Department went as far as amending rules governing development in Green Space to allow some development by tourist facilities in these areas.

The Department said: "The Department is confident that amendments proposed to the Green Space provisions provide sufficient direction and discretion to allow forms of coastal developments which are expected to be found in high quality tourist resorts.'' During the year-long inquiry period the tribunal touched on most of the major issues affecting the Island, including the future of the US Annex, the Bermudiana Hotel, Catchment Hill and quarries.

The announcement of the closure of the US bases arose during the inquiry stage and both planners and objectors to various sites mentioned the new land and buildings available to Bermuda would affect housing needs on the Island. The Corporation of Hamilton were the objectors to the use of the Bermudiana Hotel as a financial centre, but the objections failed.

The report continued: "Considerable discussion during the hearing centred on the location of the existing Corporation of Hamilton boundary.

"At least one member of the tribunal considers that the boundary could easily extend further west along Pitts Bay Road and east along East Broadway.'' The National Trust objected to a number of the zonings, especially concerning islands which now face development. But the tribunal again tried to be fair about the zoning of the islands.

Mr. Lightbourn particularly stressed that Smith's Island in St. George's was ideal for some residential development while the National Trust wanted it to be a nature reserve.

The tribunal was always keen to offer advice, including the need for more sidewalks.

One interesting example was a suggestion that Government buy 12-acres of land off Abbots Cliff Road, in Hamilton Parish, with a view to incorporating it into the National Park System.

Mr. Lightbourn says the whole tribunal process was one of the most challenging jobs he has ever undertaken and he hopes people will have seen their decisions as fair. He said: "We decided that we would work 31 days a week from 8.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.. We thought it only fair to visit each site.

"Often we would make a decision during a recess in the hearing, and periodically we would take a brief overview to make sure we were consistent throughout the whole exercise. In the majority of cases we made a decision there and then and 85 percent of the cases we were unanimous.''