Comments on: Developer On Fairmont Southampton SDO

By: watching

watching — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 12:13:25 +0000

Time to move forward with this project. Let’s get the shovels in the ground!

By: Joe Bloggs

Joe Bloggs — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 09:49:49 +0000

30 to 6. Join the PLP or shut up.

By: trufth

trufth — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 16:33:06 +0000

I DO NOT want my hard-earned money going toward anything to do with this! Taking my tax money and giving it to these people is WRONG!

How can we make sure we don’t financially support any of this mess?

By: Unbelievable

Unbelievable — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 13:30:59 +0000

“Bermuda is losing out large” – co-sign 110%

I get that Bermuda suffers without foreign investment but this is overkill, it’s just too much. We know NOTHING about Gencom (it even sounds like an evil corporation in a Disney movie) and who Gencom is. Gencom knows nothing about Bermuda and Bermudians. They probably don’t care to know. This is a money grab, plain and simple.

Another question is….will Zane DeSilva recuse Island Construction from any of this? He has a lot to answer for.

By: Ringmaster

Ringmaster — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 10:36:42 +0000

Several things jump out here looking at the comments from Gencom and the link.
1) The SDO was applied for on April 12 2023, but this contradicts many of the “start” dates promised by the Premier in 2022. Curtis has been shown to be correct, Burt is a liar.
2) Do the 42% of 34 acres include all the roads, drives, parking etc. or are the units standing in the grass and trees?
3) According to the SDO of the 261 proposed units, 114 are for tourism and 147 are residential. Tourism units are hardly close to half as stated above.
4) Why should Bermuda taxpayers subsidize multi million dollar residential units to be sold primarily to foreign buyers, when Bermudians have to pay duty, land tax etc.? At a minimum, that part of the SDO needs to be deleted, or not included in the tax breaks. No wonder Gencom is laughing having got Burt to agree with 20 years of this, and Burt is proud of his negotiating skills?

Bermuda is losing out large.

By: Kim Smith

Kim Smith — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 09:47:57 +0000

It is unfair to claim that confusion is being created by those who oppose the extensive overdevelopment proposed for the Fairmont Southampton site. Such confusion undoubtedly has come from both overt public coverage (and spin) and also from covert references, like the issues/questions/concerns surrounding the alleged financial guarantees and concessions that have been promised to Gencom by some in the Bermuda Government. Those concerns became so great, our former Finance Minister resigned his post because of them.

Acres of Green Space: Are you suggesting that only 14.28 acres of green space will be lost to this extensive development? I will go back to the various versions of the ‘facts’ and come back on this point.

Golf Course: This from the ‘Grounds in Support’ document that accompanies the SDO application:
“The proposed development on Recreation zoned land will affect 10.1 acres of the 40.95 acres of golf course at the resort.”
Okay, this does make a 24.6642246% loss of golf course and not the 25% we reported!

Proposed units: The 2009 SDO which is the only SDO that has been approved, describes those units as ‘fractional tourism and fractional tourism golf units’. That any additional SDO is asking for straight ‘tourism’ units will require a different consideration and assessment, yes.

Integrity of the integrity of the hotel building: There are reports circulating that call the structural integrity of the hotel into question and we are simply following that old saying “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”… where there are rumours or signs that something is true, it’s commonly felt that at least something about it must be true. Please share with us the independent engineer’s report and we stand to be corrected.

A final note to the Bermuda public: good luck if you want to ‘confirm the numbers for yourself’ by the deadline date of May 3rd. There are 709 pages of documents that accompany the application, plus numerous other documents you will need to refer to to get a sense of the legislation and permissions that will need to be ‘gotten’. Be warned though, the application is so woefully short of detail that, at best, you will be guessing at what you even need to be looking for in that legislation and permission documents.

By: Joe Bloggs

Joe Bloggs — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 09:35:24 +0000

A stirring self-serving rebuttal of the concerns raised by Bermudians

By: Lion Paw

Lion Paw — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 02:59:04 +0000

Thank you friend for stopping naysayers spreading mistruths hyping crowds.

By: No

No — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 02:18:48 +0000

Wow, snarky response.

I trust them even less now.