Dart denied permission for tunnel extension
The Dart tunnel on the West Bay Road
(CNS): The Central Planning Authority has denied the application from Cayman Shores Development, one of Dart’s network of companies, which had applied for permission to extend its tunnel on the West Bay Road. The decision was made yesterday evening after the CPA met and considered the application. The board has not yet published its reasoning for the refusal, but a number of concerns had been raised regarding the connections for and safety of pedestrians, the public right-of-ways to the sea and questions raised by the planning department, the Depart of Environment and the National Roads Authority about the justification for the tunnel’s extension.
The existing tunnel, which is more than 400 feet, received planning permission in February after Dart bought the beachfront property at Royal Palms in September. But as the developer was in the process of putting on the roof, it made an application to extend the underpass to 600 feet.
CNS understands that the aim is to connect Dart’s beachfront property with Camana Bay, and after securing the controversial sky rights in the area, it has plans to build on top of the tunnel, dramatically changing the appearance of the West Bay Road in the heart of the Seven Mile Beach tourist area.
However, the CPA has thrown a spanner in the works, at least temporarily.
The developer has not yet stated if it intends to appeal the decision, and in a short statement following Wednesday’s decision said, “Dart Real Estate understands the application to extend the West Bay Road underpass to the Royal Palms site has not been approved following the November 22 meeting. We await the Central Planning Authority’s official rationale for its decision.”
Following the increased and retrospective concerns about the tunnel, especially from the NRA, Dart had submitted more information to planning ahead of yesterday’s meeting in an effort to try to alleviate those concerns, but it appears not to have been enough to offset them and the mounting controversy surrounding the development, as the public begins to realise the implications of the tunnel.
In recent comments on CNS readers raised their concerns, ranging from the lack of beach access and aesthetics to over-development and carbon monoxide poisoning.
Category: Local News
Dart will get his way there are too many CIG toadies willing to be bought with his money. This refusal is nothing but a brief joke of a delay.
Dart is a convenient boogie man. I wonder who it was 20 years ago and who it will be in 20 years…
I believe the tunnels will eventually have a monorail or other type of transportation from Camana Bay to 7 mile beach to allow people to park and ride from or to GT.
I do not support this second tunnel at all, especially expanding it further. There are so many reasons,(incl. aesthetics, etc.) why this should never had been approved at all. There was no reason why Dart could not have built a couple of pedestrian overpasses over SMB Road.
As to the first tunnel, why doesn’t it have the height displayed on it? Waiting until a high load tears into it??!!
Would love to see the day a high load tears it away
Dartbots get on my nerves.
I know there’s a lot of people who aren’t understanding my comment on 24/11/2017 @ 8:35am on the Dart development topic . But ask yourself these questions. what caused Mr Dart to dump and invest and develop his MONEY in the Cayman Islands ? Was it the concrete jungle that we have today ? Or was it the beautiful undeveloped Island that we had before he started ? Do you think that he would have come today ? NO NO . So just think about what the Island has NOW to OFFER in the future and you will see and understand what I am saying and he Dart is doing .
what a bunch of nonsense on these comments…..
lets talk facts:
dart is the biggest investor in cayman islands ever
dart has built the highest quality developments in cayman
dart is the biggest private employer of caymanians
dart is the biggest environmentalist developer in cayman
dart is a legal caymanian.
dart has done nothing that has made cayman worse
without dart, cayman would be bankrupt and run by the fco in london….
i wish every developer in cayman was more like dart…
Dart should really just do what his fellow Caymanians do, build it and submit the oops I’m sorry after the fact application for guaranteed approval. Works every time.