Hotelier John Jefferis hopes to break ground on a new development of 66 luxury villas and condos starting at $1.2 million each at his beachfront Coco Reef resort early next year.He said yesterday the development was moving forward thanks to a major change in policy by Government that will now allow owners of tourism-zoned condos and homes to reside year-round in Bermuda provided they retain ownership of their unit.The paradigm shift could create a lucrative residential tourism industry here and help lift a number of long-planned developments off the ground including the St Regis in Hamilton and Hyatt in St George’s, as developers can now build and sell homes to finance the developments with demand for fractional and leaseback residential type units drying up.“I am sure there will be more who are inclined to do developments because of this change,” Mr Jefferis said. “And it can turn around tourism in the future.”Mr Jefferis already has a Special Development Order with concessions for a development on the eastern side of Coco Reef, on about seven acres. He has already built an elevated beach filled with sand including a section that will be the villa and condo owners’ beach.He has planning permission and building permit in hand to go ahead with the model home for the development.Each villa will be up to 3,000 square feet and include a private pool and gymnasium, or can be customised by owners.He said he planned to build in stages with just the one model home first.Many potential buyers, many from the UK and Europe, have expressed interest in owning one of the homes, now that they can live full-time in Bermuda and make it their home.“There is a market for this in both North America and Europe,” Mr Jefferis said. “I have been a proponent of it for many years because it is the most obvious way to jump-start ‘condo-tel’ construction and encourage residential tourism.”He added research has shown: “Every year people buy thousands of residential units affiliated with resort developments. So the more incentives Government can provide for these developments the more successful they will be.”Due to the policy change Bermuda may now actually ahead of the ‘Monaco model’ which Mr Jefferis touted in a report in 2010 on the Island’s hotel industry crisis.Monaco has four types of Residency Card options, all of which require a minimum stay ranging from three months to six months and one day. To be considered for a Residency Card individuals are required to; purchase or lease a property, obtain a certificate from a local bank showing a deposit of US$500,000, provide proof of sufficient income and a certificate of good health.Along with residential tourism, Mr Jefferis had also called for an upscale gaming component for Bermuda as part of his Monaco model and he continues to support casinos, or at least a Hamilton waterfront casino, as a way of revitalising tourism.His report, which he updated this year, urged the Monaco model as a way for the Island’s struggling hotels to survive.The report, among otehr things, pointed out:- Since 1985 some 47 hotels have closed.- Gross operating profit margins in Bermuda average around 9 percent compared to 24 percent in the US and 30 percent and higher in Cancun and Dominican Republic.Mr Jefferis pointed out that our competitors in the Caribbean were being aggressive in offering incentives such as immigration concessions and tax and duty breaks.“There are a lot of concessions offered here too,” he added.According to recent reports in Caribbean media, Grenada, for example just announced a $100 million deal to bring a Sandals resort to its tourism market saying they “facilitated their (the Gordon Butch Stewart group) investment with a package of incentives”. That raft of incentives was reported to have included the waiving of corporate taxes for 29 years, property taxes for 25 years, customs duties on all capital inputs for 25 years and other breaks.In announcing the news that owners of hotel residences in Bermuda would be given the right to stay year-round instead of the previous 90 days at a time, Tourism Minister Wayne Furbert said: “This restriction has proven to be an obstacle for the sourcing of development financing and has been a significant factor in stymieing hotel development.“The change in policy will permit owners of freehold and leasehold tourism-zoned units to reside in Bermuda provided they retain ownership of the unit. To be clear, as long as they own the unit, they will be able to reside in Bermuda.”Mr Jefferis said the new So Much More marketing campaign may be off to a promising start.He said October and November tourism was still up despite the problems with hurricanes disrupting Bermuda and the US Northeast in those months.He said you would have to attribute that to the new marketing campaign and that the right campaign helps “to feed tourists to Bermuda who then become potential buyers of the residences”.