City of Hamilton officials have provided Government with “information” concerning the Waterfront Redevelopment Project, says Mayor Graeme Outerbridge.Government, for its part, says there is “no update” on the project.Responding to a query from this newspaper seeking an update on the project Mr Outerbridge said the City Council “recently provided the Government, and its Economic Development Committee, with information about the project for their consideration”.The Economic Development Committee meets weekly, and includes the Ministries of Tourism, Public Works, Home Affairs, Finance, and Economic Development.A “revised draft copy” of the Environmental Impact Statement was also sent to the Department of Planning for its review.“This is only for preliminary consideration of the general scope of impact by development within the area. The EIS does not specify a particular design or scale of development,” the Mayor said.“We note that the current Council has reactivated the EIS application which was originally initiated by the previous City of Hamilton administration.“Together with our development partners, the City Council looks forward to further engagement with the Bermuda Government in order to craft the way forward for this important initiative for the City of Hamilton and Bermuda.“Further announcements will be made. We look forward to engaging the media and general public as we move forward.”Further questions seeking clarification of the Mayor’s statement were not answered. We sought to know what information was provided to the Economic Development Committee, why the EIS was revised and how an EIS could be submitted if the scale and design of the development had not yet been specified.“It will be difficult to produce an acceptable Environmental Impact Statement if the plans are still in flux,” said Stuart Hayward, director of Bermuda Environmental Sustainability Task Force.“If, for example, the cargo docks are to be moved elsewhere as part of the redevelopment, an EIS will need to include the environmental, economic and social ramifications of cargo docks being built and serviced at the new location. The public will want to be informed and in some cases consulted about the multiple aspects of the plans, especially any cargo docks relocation.”Mr Hayward added: “This is a huge project and there is a lot the City needs to do and, as a first step, they need to work with Government to come up with a viable design that can be shared with the public and subjected to an EIA/EIS.”He warned that the massive project would need “thorough preplanning and full transparency” to avoid repetition of projects such as the Grand Atlantic development which “cost far more than it should have” and “yielded unsatisfactory results”.“The public, and the developers I would think, do not want repeats of these schemes where not enough thought went before, and less than value-for-money came after.”The Mayor’s update comes about six weeks after a public spat between Government and the City over the project. The City went ahead with a press conference announcing the project leaders Allied Development Partners — led by construction bosses Alex DeCouto and Michael Maclean — against the expressed wishes of the Government.Home Affairs Minister Michael Fahy said Government could not support the project because it was yet to do its due diligence and had not been briefed by the City.Consultant Varoujan Hagopian, a Boston-based waterfront engineer said at the City’s press conference that its “next step” would be to assemble an “oversight waterfront development committee” composed of multiple stakeholders including business, the general public and Government.