Bermuda has spent more than ten years trying to attract developers interested in turning the former US Naval Annex into a top tourist resort.

For various reasons, including the cost of the environmental clean-up of the massive former base and Government inertia, these have not been successful.

Now Works and Engineering Minister Terry Lister wants to instead redevelop Morgan?s Point into the Island?s ?fourth residential hub?, joining Hamilton, St. George?s and the former Royal Naval Dockyard. At first glance, this seems like a good solution to several problems, most notably the dire shortage of housing on the Island.

The site could resolve the housing needs of hundreds or even thousands of people in various developments catering to different incomes and needs. There could also be grocery stores, gas stations and the like to serve the needs of the residents under the ?village? concept.

It must be assumed that Government would take on the cost of the clean-up rather than passing it on to a developer.

And Government also assumes that any of the people who would live in the area would use the ferry to go to work in Hamilton and the central parishes, thus reducing the problems of congestion. Given that there is already a fair amount of hotel construction and redevelopment in the pipeline, and given that it is unlikely that tourism is ever going to recover to the levels of the 1970s and 1980s, another tourist resort may not make sense.

But this may not be such a great idea after all.

Mr. Lister rightly noted that much of the base is virgin land and a blank canvas. But for the same reason, as Opposition Leader Grant Gibbons has pointed out, the Annex is the only site left on the Island where a major new (as opposed to renovated) resort could be constructed. Atlantis in the Bahamas kick-started that country?s struggling tourism sector and similar major resorts have done the same in Barbados and elsewhere.

At the same time, Bermuda also faces another desperate shortage and that is open land where people can go to relax and blow off steam away from the overcrowded and increasingly congested ?suburbia? that most of Bermuda has now become.

The West End is as short of this kind of area as the rest of the Island, and there is a shortage of recreational areas for sports as well.

If Morgan?s Point was redeveloped for housing, then that open land would be lost forever. Instead, it could become a focal point for community sports, playgrounds, park land, marinas for boats and water sports and the like, similar to Central Park in New York or Hyde Park in London.

There would be no need for this to be a sports palace like the vision for the National Sports Centre. This could be community-based and a green lung where people could go to breathe.

Of course, if you are living in an overcrowded apartment at a rent of thousands of dollars a month, this sounds like a luxury that Bermuda should forego. But there are other parts of the Island that are ripe for redevelopment. Sir John Swan?s Atlantis development in Hamilton is a model for the kind of housing Bermuda should be undertaking. Redeveloping and restoring North Hamilton would help to make the City a living place at the same time that it would reduce congestion from the outer parishes.

The United Bermuda Party also came up with a sensible solution to the housing crisis when it proposed redeveloping Tudor Hill in Southampton for housing. This would be a smaller scale development but it would go a long way to easing the housing crisis without sacrificing vast tracts of open land or causing massive extra congestion from the West End.

Mr. Lister feels that creating a ?fourth? village would help the Island. But this seems to fly in the face of experience. St. George?s, in spite of its best efforts, continues to struggle to attract businesses and to expand its tax base. The West End Development Corporation, in spite of its good new plans, has been treading water as it too struggles to attract businesses and residents.

Focusing resources on the existing ?residential hubs? might be a better approach than trying to invent a new one.

Mr. Lister has said that the Planning Department is now conducting a study on the area which will go to Cabinet to sanction the new development plan.

That?s the wrong approach. The study should examine all the different uses for the area, including housing, recreation, tourism, marinas and even light industrial uses, ranging from new docks to warehousing and light manufacturing.