The Proposed Altamer Gull Pond Marina

 

We have by now all heard of the new marina that is to be constructed at Gull Pond, east of Altamer Resort. Some of us have seen the video of the ground-breaking ceremony. It is on YouTube. If you have not seen it before, you can see it by clicking here. You don’t need to look at all 1 hour and 7 minutes of it. It really gets going at 49:51.

This is not the first marina proposal for the Gull Pond. We all remember, several years ago, when the Russians owned Altamer Resort, they proposed to construct a Marina in Gull pond. It is on YouTube as well. If you don’t recall the details of the proposal, you can see it here.

Gull Pond is located just east of Altamer Hotel and west of Cap Juluca Hotel. The pond is cut in two parts by Firefly Lane, a causeway and road across the middle of it, which is used as the staff entrance to Cap Juluca.

As far as I know, nothing has been published indicating what part of Gull Pond will be used. The easternmost part lies just north of Cap Juluca. The western part has always been unused. It is presently about six inches deep and in the dry season, when the water in the pond evaporates, tufts of salt are visible above the water surface. A massive amount of dredging is going to be necessary. We do not know how far below pond level the solid limestone slab of Anguilla’s surface rock lies. To get through that will probably require blasting.

We are not told if the Marina is going to occupy the entire pond, or just a part of it. My best guess is that the plan will only require the westernmost part.

To the best of my knowledge, both government and the developers have been quiet about the plans. No Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the new investors nor any Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) appear to have been published. The Minister assures me that an “EIA was completed”. But there appears to be nothing on the government website, nor in the press, to suggest that Government gave the new developers the criteria for an EIA, together with recommendations on suitable firms competent to do an EIA on such a project and requiring that one of these acceptable firms be retained by the developer to produce the EIA. These are minimum requirements for a genuine EIA. Indeed, all details about any EIA appear secret.

EIAs are not intended to be just another bureaucratic hurdle for investors to jump. An EIA is an essential for achieving sustainability through the identification and assessment of environmental, social, and economic impacts. Its purpose is to inform decision makers prior to the use of resources and commitments being made. An EIA is required where a proposed project could result in significant adverse environmental effects for the stakeholders, including neighbours, and the community at large. It allows companies and government decision makers to examine the effects that the proposed project may have on the environment and determine if the project is of real public interest.

More to the point, since the year 2001 EIAs are compulsory in Anguilla. Anguilla has signed up to an Environmental Charter with the British Government. It commits us, among other things, to ensure that EIAs are undertaken before approving major projects. The Charter was signed on 26 September 2001 by Baroness Amos for the UK and Chief Minister Osborne Fleming for Anguilla. It is published online and can be read by clicking here. I demand to see the EIA for this project.

I would also love to see this project’s business plan. What purpose do they claim a high-end yacht marina would serve in Anguilla? Why would a mega-yacht owner want to visit, far less stay in, a marina in Anguilla? Given the tiny size of Anguilla, would we have the resources to service such a facility?

Why would a mega-yacht owner want to exchange Monte Carlo or Gustavia for Anguilla? We are unlikely to offer the services of a ship’s chandlery, far less the engineering and maintenance staff found in a mega-yacht marina in Europe or the USA.

Anguilla is hurricane prone. Yachts, in the confined space of a concrete marina demonstrated in the promotional video, do not survive hurricanes. No sensible yacht owner is going to leave their multimillion-dollar yacht in such a marina for a hurricane to come and sink it. Besides, marine insurance policies do not generally permit a valuable yacht to remain in hurricane-prone waters during the hurricane season, June to November.

Their insurance policies alone could force all the mega-yachts to leave Anguillian waters for at least six months of the year. A marina in Anguilla will likely be deserted for six months every year. The condo-owners may be gone too. The only time we might expect yachts would be here is over Christmas and New Year’s. We see it happen in Antigua, the BVI, and St Maarten/St Martin every year. How does this make business sense?

Mega-yachts have their own tenders and helicopters. There is no need for such a yacht to go into a marina here and spend money when they can remain offshore anchored as they currently do. They would not even need to buy the expensive fuel a marina in Anguilla would sell when they can sail to nearby St Maarten or Tortola where marine fuel is much cheaper.

Marinas can cause heavy pollution to the land and the sea, and we already know how fragile the Anguillian marine ecosystem is.

Each year we see the numbers of yachts that currently visit Anguilla. They only come at Christmas time and remain offshore. Will having an expensive mega-yacht marina magically make more yachts come to visit? Even nearby St Barths only has an increased number of yachts visiting for Christmas and New Years. After that, the yachts leave. And in many ways St Barths, given the economies of scale, is more “high end” than Anguilla could ever be. If they desert St Barths for half the year, they will certainly desert Anguilla too.

Anguilla is surrounded by other islands with marinas, and not even those marinas are filled. We can think of the BVI, St Martin/Maarten, St Kitts, and Antigua. Even in Antigua, with its famous and historic English Harbour, its marina is not filled all year round. Anguilla will face fierce competition.

It would be interesting to see how the Altamer marina proposal and business plan treat these issues. I am assuming that government in doing its due diligence had these matters thoroughly investigated.

However, all of this causes me to have my doubts about the bona fides of this project because much of the evidence points to this not really being about a marina - it appears to be a project familiar to us in the Caribbean. Its sole purpose may be about no more than real estate speculation. The developers will offer to sell from the drawings high-end condominiums with the promise of an attached mega-yacht marina and casino, acting as the hooks for wealthy investors. We saw that in the abortive condominium/marina Road Bay Pond Marina of 2020.

Initially, my only evidence for concluding that the Gull Pond Marina proposal was really a speculative condominium project was the involvement of Mr George Fraser, Mr Lars Gunnar Odhe, and Mr David Mizrahi of SF Antillean Inc. These individuals were the principals behind the abortive condominium/marina Road Bay Pond Marina of 2020. George Fraser and David Mizrahi signed the “Definitive Agreement” for the Road Bay Marina. On 18 September 2020, I published an essay setting out my reasons for believing that the Road Pond project was not a genuine marina proposal.

All doubts about the Gull Pond marina were validated by an article in the 8 January 2024 issue of the Anguillian Newspaper. This quotes Mr Fraser as saying, “Not long ago we were invited by the previous administration to bid for the development of a marina in Sandy Ground.… but everyone knows that did not come to fruition. I did reach out to Dr Webster when his administration came into office, and I told him that we were determined to stay in Anguilla to develop a marina here. About one year ago we signed an MOU with Altamer, and today we are here breaking the ground for this marina.”

I would like to know, was there a real Environmental Impact Assessment ever insisted on by government for this project proposal?

Are the new investors buying or leasing the pond and the land around it on which they will construct any casino and high-end apartments?

Was an Aliens Landholding Licence issued? What were the terms of the Licence?

Are we ever going to see the conditions under which this group have been permitted to take over this pond?

Have the Anguilla National Trust and other local, regional, and international experts been invited to advise on the conditions we should insist on for such a project?

Can we rely on the political party presently in opposition, to hold government’s feet to the fire over this project and its missing EIA? After all they were the ones who, in the first place, welcomed this group to Anguilla to promote the Road Bay Marina just a few short years ago.

All these questions remain unanswered.

Sandy Ground Marina MOU

 

Effective 31 May 2020, the outgoing Anguilla United Front government signed a memorandum of understanding (called “a Definitive Agreement” but referred to in this article as “the MOU” or “the Agreement”) with a Swiss Group to develop a marina in the Sandy Ground’s Road Salt Pond.  The objective of the project is said to be the development, construction, and operation of a mixed-use mega-yacht marina, waterfront, and resort at a cost of some US$270 million.

A few short weeks later (on 29 June) the AUF lost the general election and was replaced by an Anguilla Progressive Movement administration.  The APM administration inherited the MOU.  Residents of Sandy Ground are calling on the new administration to repudiate the MOU.  They oppose the MOU on several grounds including that it will disrupt the village, poison the people, and produce no benefit to the country.

A first look at the MOU reveals that it is essentially a real estate development project.  The document says that the Developer will build a 150-berth marina.  Crucially, it will also build a hotel and sell ocean estate lots, port town villas, seafront residences, sea view town homes, and commercial space.  The real estate units are to be sold as condominium and time share-type properties.

Some of the objections advanced by residents of Sandy Ground include engineering, environmental, feasibility, and amenity issues.  Let us look at some of them.

The engineering objections to the development of a mega-yacht marina in the Road Pond are formidable.  The pond was apparently created in prehistoric times by a sand bank forming across the middle of the bay.  Experts can tell us approximately when this happened.  It is likely to have been many thousands of years ago, perhaps as long ago as a hundred thousand years.  During the intervening period, and from time to time, glaciers covered large areas of the earth causing sea levels to lower.  Subsequent melting of the glaciers  resulted in rising sea levels.  The result was that the sand bank was sometimes above and sometimes below the surface of the surrounding sea.  The present village of Sandy Ground is constructed on this sand bank which is no more than 10 feet above sea level.

During the periods when Sandy Ground was above sea level, sea water permeated through the sandy bank and filled the trapped bay behind.  This formed the familiar Road Salt Pond.  As the water in the pond evaporated, crystals of salt precipitated out and sank to the bottom.  For thousands of years, this salt lay unmolested on the bottom of the pond, gradually becoming compressed as more and more layers formed on top the previous ones.  Presently, the water in the pond is no more than some six inches deep.  Below that is a thin layer of mud and a much thicker layer of fossilized salt.

The old-timers among us recall when, some thirty years ago, the US TV entertainment billionaire Bob Johnson owned a villa at Cove Castles Resort in West End.  He first proposed to the then Government a project for converting the Road Pond into a Marina.  He is supposed to have had a geological survey of the bottom of the pond done to determine the feasibility of dredging it.  This survey is said to have found that there was a layer of some forty feet of rock salt overlying the deepest part of the rocky limestone basement.  One of the reasons why he was said to have dropped the idea of a marina was the advice that it would take a great deal of blasting to remove this rock salt layer.  Sandy Ground village would have to be vacated, and the people located elsewhere for a period of up to two or three years, while the blasting was carried out.  This proposition was too expensive even for a billionaire, and the project fell through.  With increased development in Sandy Ground village since that time, temporary relocation of the villagers is likely to be more expensive now than it was at that time.  No doubt Government has a copy of this feasibility study, or with a little effort can get access to it.

Even if the residents of the village do not have to be relocated, questions have been asked about the quality of the air once the mud on the bottom of the pond is disturbed.  We are all familiar with the great stink that comes from the pond from time to time.  The question is asked if a disturbance of the mud layer will result in the air flow over the village being poisoned.  Only a feasibility study of the mud layer and its qualities will reveal the true situation.

Residents doubt that another marina in the Leeward Islands is feasible.  Why would any boat owner choose to dock his mega yacht in an expensive little island like Anguilla when the established marinas of nearby St Maarten, Tortola, and Antigua are willing and able to provide all their necessities?

Reading the MOU, one gets the impression that the main interest of the Developer is not the marina but the sale of condominiums.  The proposed marina appears no more than the hook to bring in purchasers of the luxury units.  If that bait fails, the feasibility of the real estate aspect of the project also fails.

What evidence do we have that this Developer has US$270 million to invest?  The question must be asked, whether after the “great financial success” of Starwood (remember them?) and other failed projects, any other than an idiot would take this project on?  Could this project be another case of a penniless “developer” obtaining a licence or agreement with a view of going into the market to find money?

Hurricanes pass through the Leeward Islands (of which Anguilla is the most northerly) nearly every year.  Any boat (whether berthed or beached) remaining in an Anguillian harbour during a hurricane will suffer catastrophic damage.  We have seen what happens in the existing nearby marinas.  For this reason, luxury boat owners sail their vessels to Trinidad or Aruba for safety during the hurricane season which lasts for some six months.  The existing marinas in St Maarten (where they have an international airport and marine supply and diesel repair infrastructure in place) remain half-empty for much of the year.

It is notorious that insurance companies do not insure boats that remain in these waters between June and November.  Which mega yacht owner will choose to leave his valuable boat in Anguillian waters uninsured during the hurricane season?  Any new marina built in Anguilla must plan to close for six months in every year for want of business.  The associated hotel and condominiums will probably be unoccupied during this period.

With the onslaught of the Covid-19 pandemic, the holiday and cruise industries have collapsed.  The number of people who will venture overseas by ‘plane or by boat for leisure in the foreseeable future will be limited.  Mega yachts are more likely to remain safely moored in Florida or in Monaco than sailing across the seas to under-resourced destinations like Anguilla.  It is not likely there will be any market for the projected marina, hotel, or condominium units until the world-wide economy has recovered.  This must take at least the next three to five years.  Investors are not all stupid people.  The economic feasibility of such a situation is much to be doubted.

Article 8 of the MOU provides for Environmental Impact Assessments to be carried out.  Government is obliged by the MOU to approve all construction subject to adequate environmental and engineering studies.  If the Developer fails to commence work within 3 years of the effective date, Government has the right to revoke the Agreement.  It is likely that this provision will operate to save the people of Sandy Ground from the planned economic and other inconveniences that they were facing.

Article 11 provides that in the event of any disagreement between the parties, they will submit the issue to arbitration.  Government may only terminate the Agreement if the arbitration process concludes that it has the right to do so because of a material breach by the Developer that cannot be amicably resolved.  It is likely that the failure to carry out the planned development in the coming three years will provide Government with the opportunity to bring this misconceived project to an early end.  It would be quite wrong for Government to give in to public pressure and terminate the Agreement without a good reason as contemplated by the Agreement.  They will probably lose any resulting lawsuit and be obliged to pay the Developer damages.

The new administration has been lumbered with this MOU by the outgoing one.  There is probably little or nothing they can do at this time to get out of their obligation to let the preparation and planning move forward.  What the Government’s expert advisers must look out for is the opportunity in due course to use the escape clauses in the Agreement.