Math (Maths, for our UK educated readers)
March 16th, 2010 at 9:53 am (Bermuda, Politics, Tourism)
One thing about this whole Southlands/Morgan’s Point debacle doesn’t add up. Dr. Ewart Brown’s normal clown show of self-interest, meddling, and hidden motives is by this point being revealed.
What I don’t understand is this:
Why were the owners of Southlands Ltd. so excited when they bought Southlands? At the time of the purchase it was zoned such that it could really only be used as a cottage colony. I wouldn’t make that kind of buy, have architects do a huge amount of work, then bank on an SDO to make construction possible… it would be wildly speculative and hugely risky, especially in a world that was at the time full of far easier and lower-risk development options.
Did they have behind the scenes assurances from the politicians that they’d allow the land to be effectively rezoned?
If so, I have absolutely zero sympathy for them and they deserve to get the Southlands property zoned as it was.
Tryangle said,
March 18, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Great to see you posting again.
I wager that the owners saw an opportunity to develop the land into something – whether it was a hotel or something smaller I couldn’t guess at. Your question about possible government assurances may have merit though. How long ago was the property acquired?
The SDO in the first place probably shouldn’t have happened, however.
Onion said,
March 19, 2010 at 3:25 pm
I’m not entirely sure, it was probably about 4 years ago… I’m sure the information is public somewhere. I just remember one of the involved parties being very excited when the sale closed.
At that time there were some astute developers making very high returns on office and residential developments on the island and I remember scratching my head at the purchase.
Letariatpro said,
March 20, 2010 at 7:11 am
we reap what we sow.