THE Southern Tourism Development Corporation (STDC) has made 21 recommendations for changes to the agreement between the government and Desert Star Holdings (DSH) for a multi million dollar project in Vieux Fort.
The STDC is a registered non-governmental, non-profit organization which co-ordinates the development and advancement of touristic activities in the south of St. Lucia. It is one of the organizations that has expressed reservations about some aspects of the plans for the project.
The STDC applauded what it said was the government’s invitation to engage in public consultation, and for concerned citizens and organizations to submit contributions to improving the DSH agreement.
It said: “Accordingly, as the premier organization overseeing the touristic and economic development of Vieux Fort and the South, and as a government funded organization, STDC is pleased to submit the following twenty-one recommendations for improving the DSH proposal as spelt out in the Framework and Supplementary Agreements signed by the Master Developer, Mr. Teo Ah Khing, and the Prime Minister, the Honourable Mr. Allen Chastanet.”
The STDC’s recommendations are as follows:
1. The developer must be responsible for the relocation of displaced Bruceville residents, and for presenting a credible reallocation plan with a compensation and land exchange component.
2. The developer, not government, must be responsible for the removal of any infrastructure in the way of the development.
3. The developer must be responsible for the decommissioning of the Vieux Fort landfill and the construction of a replacement landfill at an environmentally suited location. The selection of this new site must be accompanied by a full environmental impact assessment study (EIA).
4. Given its proximity to the Vieux Fort River, the abandoned pumice mine at Grace/La Retraite, earmarked for the landfill, is inadmissible for such use.
5. In general, social, economic, and environmental impact studies of all projects and all aspects of each project need to be conducted and the findings of these studies made public and the subject of public consultations before DCA approval.
6. The developer must allow St. Lucians to buy at least up to 20% of shares in the development.
7. The developer must assume the cost of establishing and operating an educational Training Fund for the equine industry, and the cost of establishing and maintaining an Equine Disease Free Zone to safeguard the health of imported thoroughbreds.
8. While the racecourse is under construction, the developer should provide scholarships to St. Lucians to become conversant in the Chinese/Mandarin language, and to acquire equine related skills. That’s to ensure that employment-wise St. Lucia benefits maximally from the enterprise.
9. The developer must compensate livestock owners in the designated area for having to cease operations because of the disease free zone, or agree to finance the adjustments farmers are required to make in complying with the disease free zone requirements.
10. The developer must assume responsibility for the full cost of purchased land, and must purchase the land at current market values.
11. In return for leased land, the developer must provide government equity in the development up to the market value of the land.
12. The development ought not to subsume the whole of Beausejour Farm. For the sake of green space, history, culture, and agriculture education, a portion of the farm should be retained by government.
13. Lands the developer has decided not to purchase initially, including the stadium, and lands surrounding that facility, and other lands adjacent to the race course development that the developer demands be reserved for future use, should in fact be made available to local investors to capitalize on the spinoffs from the development. Any university or educational complex that emerges in the area ought not be part of the developer’s enclave. The goal here is to limit as much as possible the sphere of influence of the developer, while providing local entrepreneurs maximum opportunity to benefit from the development.
14. The developer must provide an estimate of the number of jobs the development will create and what percent of its construction and operation labour force will comprise of St. Lucians, and also what would be the nature of these jobs.
15. The developer must deposit a certain percentage of CIP receipts, enterprise profits and horse race and casino betting receipts in a Vieux Fort Development Fund.
16. The government must break down the development into at least three different enterprises: (1) The horse race course and other equine activities; (2) the hotels and villas; and (3) the marina and casino, where each enterprise is assigned to a different developer, such that there would be no less than three different development agreements. No more than 5 years must be allocated for the completion of each enterprise. Therefore the only agreement to be entered into with DSH is that pertaining to equine related activities.
17. To preserve a significant stretch of Pointe Sable Beach for uninhibited local enjoyment, development along Pointe Sable Beach must be limited to the southern end of the beach, towards the foot of Moule-a-Chique, fronting Bruceville. Moreover, the hotel(s) must be situated beyond the vegetation that clothes the beach, west of the American left-over road, such that when on the beach one may not notice a hotel in the vicinity.
18. The Pointe Sable Recreation Park must be left untouched by this and all future developments. This must be absolute. If the developer must take over the Dames Field, then the developer must prepare a replacement ground.
19. If the developer is to use any part of Pointe Sable Beach, then together with the St. Lucia National Trust, STDC, and the Vieux Fort South Constituency Council the Developer must take action for the restoration and preservation of the beach.
20. Before embarking on any large scale development project in the Vieux Fort area, the government ought to develop or establish a comprehensive development and land use plan for Vieux Fort, with representatives of Vieux Fort integrally involved in the process, and ascertain how proposed developments would fit in the overall development plan.
21. Among the DSH-proposed development projects, the government ought to consider the marina development as a St. Lucian development project, where St. Lucians would own the majority of shares in the enterprise. To encourage or facilitate this process, government should consult with STDC, which for several years now has been advocating for such a development, reference Bob Hathaway’s Vieux Fort marina development proposal, put up the land and about one-third of the required capital, and entice St. Lucians to put up the balance of the required capital.
I Wonder which one of the crooked politicians wrote that manifesto for them?
….number 17 though! Brilliant! Chastenet is coming for those two Vieux Fort seats.
@NY& Nordic Track
Acting like red neck -Cro Magnon -TRUMP BUFFOONS is only going to further polarize the cordiality that Afro Conscious St Lucians have genuinely shown towards their PRIVILEGED “caucasian persuasion” -since Emancipation.
Your “subliminal” disrespect for Dr Reynold’s “WORLD CLASS” writing abilities is most evident when you state that some rogue politician prepared his writing. WHO ARE YOU clowns KIDDING????. THERE ARE NO NO NO (INFINITUM) POLITICIANS (since Adam & Eve) –
THAT CAN LIFT A FINGER LET ALONE A PENCIL TO pour ecrit like @NY& Nordic Track
Acting like red neck -Cro Magnon -TRUMP BUFFOONS is only going to further polarize the cordiality that Afro Conscious St Lucians have genuinely shown towards their PRIVILEGED “caucasian persuasion” -since Emancipation.
Your “subliminal” disrespect for Dr Reynold’s “WORLD CLASS” writing abilities is most evident when you state that some rogue politician prepared his writing. WHO ARE YOU clowns KIDDING????. THERE ARE NO NO NO (INFINITUM) POLITICIANS (since Adam & Eve) THAT CAN LIFT A FINGER LET ALONE A PENCIL TO COMPARE TO DR REYNOLD’S AUTHORSHIP.
Did you know that he was raised in a spiritual household -sans paganism = TRUSTWORTHY>
Hello, I read the BBC columns and New York Times Op ED DAILY.
As a life long student of proper writing form, I will follow Dr Reynold’s to the Crab Nebula (oops I for get , your knowledge of Astro physics is NIL!) long before I consider your current resident laureate.
This is not about GREED -it is about the survival of what our ancestors toiled for in the most despicable of ungodly trials and tribulations -at the hands of soulless Europeans.
But of course I truly do not expect you two, Euro trash clowns to understand .
Rest assured, that as much as your nordic aggression changed the course of historical self actualization for the Anglos at the Battle of HASTINGS, we humble Africans may take courage in the example of SHAKA ZULU in order to mitigate our survival.
St Lucia’s surviving Laureate with his Shakespearean influenced mastery of “FICTIONAL”genre is like Hollywood is entertaining.
On the other hand the exquisite REALITY /expose writing genre that the righteous Dr Reynolds is so masterfully endowed to bring home the message of truth -is beyond the standards of PULITZER.
With an authentic Japanese nod to the great professor Wulf Soulage (with his concerns about our reality) he is another master of the truth embedded REALITY genre (and we MUST be grateful on the scale of his Laureate or Pulitzer achievement potential) nevertheless, for URGENCY we need the effervescent escape VOICE and messages of Dr Reynolds and Julius James and all who understand the magnitude of the TRAVESTY that may befall us.- given the simple-minded framework of this LOPSIDED sub-ASIAN deal.
As it stands this deal is CULTURAL GENOCIDE for African StLucians!!!
CHAS has his escape routes via FRANCE – Martinique passport + Canada via Quebec (his secondary schooling and Great Britain as a former Commonweath nation prime minister . OOPS did i omit his GREEN CARD via Florida USA . TRUMP would treat him nicely at his LARGO mansion….n’est pas? After all Silver Spoon $Money$ is joined at the offshore Tax evading hips 🙂
OUI!
WHAT THE H**L DO AFRICAN ST LUCIANS HAVE WHEN ALL IS TAKEN AWAY from them SANS EQUITY!!!!
RUN TO WHERE? Perhaps the jungles of Brazil -as consolation from the merciful Brazilians. Tarzan & Jane will approve , n’est pas?
So, Dr Reynolds writing is actually doing your most apparent , red neck- race supremacist perspective a favor by clarifying the PITFALLS of this BLACK St Lucia alienation- Sub Asian dominated deal.
WHY / HOW?
BECAUSE if it goes down as it is written and the bucolic masses find out “too Late’ then they shall react with DESPERATE hostility.
Their uprising will be fiercer than an eruption of the dormant volcano at Soufriere. Even worse than the Mau Mau uprising in Africa.
And Nordic Track you will pray that Odin sends a Concorde toute suite to whisk you away to a frozen Fyord in Norway- when the spooks confront the yellow Asian locust plague!!
Dr Reynold’s writing is an attempt to DEFUSE the inevitable propensity to chant and act out the old olde slave uprising chant
“DEVAY mama DEFAY
avant La Luna levee
Nous ca descend en ville
Nous ca ………(if you do not know the rest of this riotous chant -ask your laureate- he may have made reference to it -subliminally – in his famous VIEW FROM MONKEY HILL poem.
Get smart there is NO POLITICIAN -straight or crooked on this likkle rock that can write at the level or as eloquently as Dr Reynolds ………..therefore, you know and I know that your likkle Troumasse biased mud slinging drive by was a futile effort to diss his most distinguished WORLD CLASS authorship.
Hey, Fake NY-
do you know Roger Grimsby, Peter Jennings or Walter Cronkite? They pressed for the truth in their NY NEW YOR and USA realities .
Know this, DR Reynolds is there up there with their notable caliber if not beyond their standards of communication excellence.
There was a spiritual blogger who made a poignant assertion about Chas’ confusion between the War of Independence and The Civil War (USA).
Now I get it. It was a psy slip over fears that the African Looshans may rightfully revolt en masse over a capitalistic infraction or imperialistic shackles…….hmmmmmmmmmmm!
This deal needs serious retooling along the lines that are supported by Julius James (the serene Buddha) and his org. AMEN.
Thankfully, the majority of non African heritage looshans are not NITWITS like u Flambeau jesters and shall quell the situation a propro.
DR REYNOLD’S AUTHORSHIP.
(cont’d)
IS MOST RELEVANT for all St Lucians (White-Black-Indian and all others.).
This deal and it’s unilateral process- has no merit nor value for 97% of St Lucians.
This “RACE TO THE BOTTOM” (to quote the prolific engineer -author) is a brazen act of THIEVERY by the aristocratic minority against the proletariat.
It’s dire consequences shall UNHINGE the frail rudimentary democratic latches that are in place within our current powder keg society.
Let us pray that we learn from the lopsided divisive decisions that tore Ireland apart.
So “bad boyz” NY & Nordic Track who prays to Valhalla your recommendations for the the dispossesed of Bruceville etc is a a neo nazi concentration camp or neo Stalin Gulag?
Good luck. Not even God Save Our Gracious Queen’s finest Marine regiment or Trump’s Green Beret’s / Seals will be able to contain the proverbial backlash.
-And what of the Golden egg tourists?
Evidently. China has emerged from her “Bamboo Curtain” era of cultural introspection as an economic powerhouse
Perhaps St Lucia can do with a “Bois Gaulet” curtain of cultural /economic introspection?
As professor Wulf Soulage mapped our forlorn wings of “national Independence ” and Dr. Reynolds -our soulless national purpose & priorities – the bankrupt (for natives) COCO Dan Asian deal pales by comparison. Our broken national spirit has descended into the Hades Levels where Fire ($Mullah$) is and adored master -INSTEAD of the SERVANT of our national alacrity that it ought to be.
Therefore, NY & Nordic Track , keep on burning “Euro Trash” smears to cook your Stone Soup….very soon you two jesters shall be hyper ventilating on your own soot and smog..n’est pas?
@ the Norse Prince (Tracker) but not his pipsqueak sidekick (fake) NY:
This is not about GREED -it is about the survival of what our ancestors toiled for in the most despicable of ungodly trials and tribulations -at the hands of soulless colonial imperialists.
But of course, I truly do not expect you two, Euro trashing clowns to understand …….After all $money$ makes your mere existence …fly!
Dr Anderson’s Cultural virtue is steeped in a pure spiritual essence that you neoPagans know as the character trait TRUSTWORTHINESS. His spiritual grace has the power to redeem your barbaric core……do not expect the reading of the Geneva Convention when you scale OUR Southern ramparts…..
In another place and epoch I trained with ATTILA and GENGIS aboard saddle free , captured Arabian steeds. Oh, what teenage fun we enjoyed. Just imagine the equivalent of a teen Robin Hood astride a magnificent White Arabian Charger, raising Cain at the goons of the sheriff of Nottingham…
Analogies aside, rest assured, that as much as your heritage of nordic Norman aggression changed the course of historical self actualization for the Anglos at the Battle of HASTINGS,
…we humble African Looshans may take courage in the brazenly bold righteous indignation example of SHAKA ZULU,
in order to mitigate our survival.
Nordic Track I am betting that you are also an athletic enthusiast?
The following will give you an insight into my training and preparedness.
https://youtu.be/pL1gL2gwuH0
Do you know that the Nordic warriors intermarried successfully to claim that slice of France called NORmandie… right before they took over the bloodlines of ENgland at the Battle of Hastings?
Rest assured a proper platoon or two of valiant Vfort Vanguards shall be so prepared.
You gonna need some caramel popcorn with this training video….enjoy.