CONTROVERSIAL plans for a major hotel development on South Shore have been given the green light by Government.A Special Development Order has been granted to developer Atlantic Ltd.,
CONTROVERSIAL plans for a major hotel development on South Shore have been given the green light by Government.A Special Development Order has been granted to developer Atlantic Ltd., which submitted plans to build a nine-storey, 706-bed luxury resort with an additional 57 houses on 13.1 acres in Warwick.
It is not certain if the Ministry has imposed any restrictions to Atlantic’s original proposal.
The development borders a second controversial proposal for a 467-room hotel at Southlands, which is also waiting Environment Ministry approval for an SDO.
That development has sparked a wave of protest and a petition from residents calling for the project to be blocked.
Yesterday, Ministry Permanent Secretary Kevin Monkman confirmed that Atlantic’s SDO had been granted, but declined to comment further, saying that Environment Minis
Yesterday, a National Trust spokeswoman said she could not comment on this week’s ruling until full details are released.
But in the Trust’s most recent newsletter, the organisation expresses concern that the full impact of so many SDOs being submitted at once is not being considered.
“In four of the applications for hotel development SDOs, all of the sites have large areas already zoned developable, but all of the proposed plans would encroach onto protected habitats, rather than restricting their buildings to the areas allowed,” the newsletter says.
“Those designations were made for good reasons — they should not be ignored.”
The article also raised concerns about shoreline development, claiming that coastal construction created “highly unpredictable problems such as the migration of sandy beaches, especially on a high energy coast like South Shore”.
