Dec. 3, 2008 — The St. Croix Coastal Zone Management Commission was all set Wednesday night to decide the fate of a major tourist development planned for Estates Williams and Punch, but a last-minute request for delay put the matter on hold for at least another month.
About 30 people were on hand in the Fritz Lawaetz Conference Room in the USVI Legislative Building in Frederiksted, a small fraction of the overflow audience that crowded into the public hearing on the Williams and Punch Development last month in Frederiksted's cavernous St. Gerard's Hall. As commission chairman Tyrone Seals gaveled the meeting to order at 6:10, one audience member noted quietly to his neighbor that there didn't seem to be any representatives for the applicants on hand. That comment turned out to be something of an omen.
After calling the meeting to order, Seals reported that that afternoon, CZM counsel Dalila Patton had presented him with a letter from the applicants. In it, the applicants asked for a temporary removal from active consideration of the proposal, and a waiver of the time limit required by law.
Under V.I. code, the CZM must act on an application within 30 days of the public hearing unless the applicant waives the time limit, Seals explained.
Commission member Masserae Webster asked if the representatives for the planned development had given any reason for the delay. Patton replied that they are not required to. The decision to seek a delay is entirely within the purview of the applicants, Patton said, and the committee has no option but to grant it.
Unhappy wth the last-minute nature of the decision, Masserae asked if there was any timeline the applicants had to adhere to.
Patton replied that the request for an extension of time can be made "any time prior to the committee taking action."
"Even down to the last hour?" Masserae asked.
"Yes," Patton replied.
Under the circumstances, Seals said he had no option but to note the delay and try to schedule a new date for the deliberation. The applicants suggested Jan. 6, but the commission settled on Jan. 14.
As Seals called for a motion to adjourn, several voices from the audience called out asking for the developer's reason for the delay, but there was no response. The meeting was adjourned and the audience filed out.
"Well," said one man as he left, "at least it got me out of the house on a Wednesday evening."
At stake is approval of a proposed 378-unit coastal casino-resort development. The project, now being called Amalago Bay, borders Rainbow Beach on the south and Sunset Beach on the north. A total of 322 rooms are to be part of a main casino-hotel complex. Around that will be three swimming pools. An 18-hole public golf course is to run eastward up into the forested hills of Estates William and Punch. Two channels from the sea are to be carved inland, creating a lagoon for a 64-slip inland marina. The channels and lagoon will create a small beach island connected to the resort by a bridge coming over the south channel. On the artificial island a 56-room beach hotel is planned.
It is the inland marina proposal that has drawn the most comment during the planning phase. The project will require the developers to move the shore road inland. Plans have the road splitting off at Rainbow Beach and going in about 800 feet, turning north. Then it will blend with Creque Dam Road before rejoining Northside Road. Ensuring continued easy public access to the beach was another widespread concern voiced repeatedly at the public hearing.
Wednesday's audience had come expecting to hear a final decision on the issue, but was disappointed. Seals was clearly unhappy as well.
"I would like the public to know that this was not on the part of the Coastal Zone Management Commission or the St. Croix community," he said before closing the meeting. "The commission has taken the rules and responsibilities very seriously … We were ready to make a decision."
That decision will have to wait until at least Jan. 14.
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