Cargo dock plans account for 250k population by 2074
(CNS): At the first of two public meetings about the various options for a new cargo dock for Grand Cayman, it was clear that many of the members of the public who attended were not on the same page as the government representatives and consultants who presented the case, the difference being the assumption that the new dock was needed at all.
The case for the new dock relies on the belief that the population of the island will continue to grow for at least the next 50 years. The consultants adopted the population projections calculated by the National Roads Authority, which assumes a 2% annual growth to the year 2074, reaching a total of 250,000, which is thought to be a plateau.
However, these figures were greeted with dismay by many attendees, who applauded those who took to the microphone to ask how the island could possibly cope with so many people when it is struggling with the current population and question the proposed environmental destruction based on an assumption that could be erroneous.
“The population is the crux of the matter,” Dr Virginia Hobday, a resident of Breakers, told the panel. “Before you start looking at your ports, you’d better start looking at your roads, you’d better start looking at your schools, you’d better start looking at a whole bunch of things before you just say we’re going to have 250,000 people here.”
She said her house looked down to Pease Bay, which is “pristine,” and described her feelings at the prospect that it could be destroyed as “emotional”.
“I would just ask you to consider this very seriously… You can decide you want to have a population of 250,000. You can control that population if you want. So you don’t really have to design for this, even if you have tourism.”
Hobday continued, “You need to take a step back, look at your other infrastructure and stop destroying the natural habitat. The massive impact on the marine [environment] there, it will never recover and it will never be the same. So, don’t destroy a new place. Try and build on what you already have… Over the next five years, have a serious conversation about population growth and about infrastructure.”
Nicholas Foster, a young Caymanian fishing guide, talked about the three options the consultants had looked at in the Breakers area (Options 8, 9 and 10). He said the area “that you call ‘reclaimed land’ — that is barrier reef”. Noting the abundant marine life found there, he said that building a dock in that area was “a terrible, terrible idea”.
He said it would not only affect the wildlife there but would also open up the south coast and compromise the barrier reef. “These guys may not be concerned,” he said, indicating towards Tourism and Ports Minister Kenneth Bryan, “but 50% of my trips are done there.”
Well-known photographer and conservation advocate Courtney Platt said, “We talk as though there is no way we can limit our population growth. To me, the single most important thing we should be doing… before considering this type of infrastructure expansion is control our growth in pace with our infrastructure. That’s really the main issue I see for all of our woes.”
Platt, who had campaigned against the cruise dock in the George Town Harbour, said that expanding the existing dock there “would be far less damaging to the environment than proceeding with this plan on the south coast that [would be] hugely, enormously, a bigger environmental disaster for us”.
He said the reefs around the Cayman Islands, which have been overfished, “desperately” need to be restored so that Caymanians can continue to fish. “A day may come when ‘it’ hits the fan and cargo ceases to come in for some reason… and we’ll need a strategic food reserve.”
Peter Schmid also questioned the assumptions made about population growth. He said the economy of the Cayman Islands would have to change for the population to keep growing as the consultants suggested. He believed the local tourism product was finite and had trouble imagining an economy here that would sustain 250,000 people.
A young Caymanian said she was concerned about the state of democracy in the Cayman Islands and asked for a longer consultation period and an extended deadline for the survey. She also suggested they conduct focus groups, particularly with youth activists and young Caymanians.
Referring to a report by regional economist Marla Dukharan, which found that tourism contributes relatively little to the Cayman Islands economy, she said, “We have to have vision and planning for the future and also understand the data and the economics” before making decisions that “will have rippling effects for generations to come”.
One of the panellists, Sam Story, an associate partner at KPMG, explained that the consultants had assumed a high estimate for the population to ensure that, when it is finished, the dock will have the capacity to cope with however many people there are and whatever volume of cargo it has to deal with.
“We can’t predict what the population will be,” he said, noting that unknown economic and political factors would shape this.
Weighing in on the issue, Minister Bryan appeared to agree with the “population concerns” expressed at the meeting. “Most people know my position on immigration reform,” he said but nevertheless insisted that, regardless of population growth, the tonnage of imports will grow because of tourism.
Stating that the current population is 82,000 (a figure that many dispute), Bryan made a point of publicly asking Harold Westerman, from engineering consultants Stantec, at what point the existing cargo facilities would reach capacity.
“The current port can handle very little more population,” Westerman stated. However, the short-term plans they have for dealing with the cargo, which include widening the south pier at the existing port and “shuffling things and reconfiguring things a little at the CDC”, were designed to handle cargo up to 2039. With their estimates for the population growth, that would be 133,000 people.
Beyond that, “you could do lots of little increments” like expanding the CDC and the port, but he said that would not be sufficient for the projected growth. However, he introduced the idea that the port could be built in phases. He said the channel and the turning basin (which would cause major environmental damage) would have to be built, but initially, just two-thirds of the wharf could be constructed and added to “down the road”.
Therefore, if the population growth is smaller than expected, the port would last much longer than 2084, he said. However, this would do nothing to address the environmental destruction and quality of life concerns that were raised.
In the main presentation at the meeting, Westerman explained that the entire process of planning and building the dock would take between ten and fifteen years but should then last for at least 50 more years. While the new dock is processing, they are proposing the expansion and improvement of the current facilities.
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Category: development, Local News
There are too many people in Cayman, in 2024
250,000 at the 3/4 stage of the century is just off in La La Land.
Excellent report from CNS. Total respect and gratitude.
kenny strikes again with his pie in the sky propose projects.
Is it worth mentioning that DART has already bought up all the land surrounding the proposed new port facilities in Breakers?
Everything is worth mentioning, people are tired of the secrecy and think they cannot speak freely.
when I took my money and bought land in Little Cayman they thought I was nuts. Why are you going in that bush? 250,000 haha, good one, look at the population chart 📈 10% growth for as far as they eye can see….500,0000, good luck!
Government is going to ramrod this through — they’ve already chosen the primary players. We can go through the government’s version of a referendum. I predict the questions won’t be a straightforward yes or no. Will be more like: Do you approve of a Cruise Port at ______________ or ___________. They don’t dare giving us the actual power of choice. Why would they? We might actually choose something that was good for the people.
The cornerstone of the entire cayman economy is the financial services industry which has to be factored into any and all forecasts. If the financial services economy decreases or disappears (all this takes is a few quick law changes in major economies abroad), the population in cayman would capitulate when all of the professionals and workers in the ancillary industries leave the island.
This is a major risk and often times feels inevitable. Ask yourself the question, do you really think that the offshore financial industry will still exist in 2075?
No it won’t.
Total US federal government debt breached $30 trillion mark.
American Empire is marching into the sunset.
Plan accordingly.
lol. we make nothing. export nothing other than FS. govt revenue collapses to almost zero. without FS our GDP/capita drops to Jamaica at best.
America is a country that seriously thought about blowing up the moon so their rivals wouldn’t get there first. they will absolutely trigger a global war to reset the markets.
Plan accordingly.
Finaly! This has been talked about for 30 years now. The cargo dock needs to be moved from George Town if anyone is going to be living there. Less traffic and forget about the cruise dock. Just make it a liveable city.
I think moving the cargo port to Breakers is a fantastic idea. It will help reduce the congestion in George Town, make it more livable and less noisy and open up opportunities to transform the current port area into something amazing, like recognisable landmark or a park. This would bring new life to George Town, with more restaurants and bars, giving us an alternative to Camana Bay.
Except the only thing it would likely lead to is the port in town being committed 100% to cheap short term cruise tourism turning town into even more of a tourist trap than it already is
That is their plan. Move cargo out of town, but since it will take so long to build, expand GT piers so then, oh wait, we never saw this coming…. Now we have lovely piers in GT that can be used for… CRUISE SHIPS. They think we are idiots. They are hell bent on screwing this island over, us the people that live here and the future generations. I have NEVER felt more detached from my homeland than the the way I feel now with the money grabbing GREEDBOTS that are determined to line their pockets at the expense of those true blooded Caymanians. It is so sad. Minister Bryan, once a criminal, always a criminal. And if they dont put that on your headstone, I will. McKeeva, McThieva, we had you pegged for decades.
It is so sad to think that we have literally given it to the golden goose up the rear channel so hard that our friends, families and future generations will be rubbing themselves with numbing cream in ways we never thought possible.
Big Project, hotels no thoughts of the Little People, including youth and older, who are on BELOW STARVATION WAGES, as defined by the Government.
There has been NO Mention of the disastrous Minimum Wage decision by the same terrible Committee, and the Government, to offer only hotel workers the $1 “increase”, but not due for another YEAR!!
Don’t they see the rents, foods and other High Cost of Living, in the WORLD!!
Stop being hung up on the 250k population, Cayman will never reach there and if it does in 2084 we’ll all be dead anyway. The point of the meeting being ignored by everyone is that the cargo facility is already too small for the current population and needs to be enlarged which means relocation. The government needs to listen to the professionals they’ve paid a lot of money to study the issue, choose the best location and get it done. Stop talking, just do it!
Bu!!$H!t
The new cargo is to distract from the very expensive cruise port they will win out of this while lining their golden pockets at our expense. THEY HAVE ZERO SHITS TO GIVE ABOUT US.
The clown car is already going over the cliff. All we are arguing about is who gets to sit in the front seats.
The project team has ruled out GT expansion because they are looking for a site with 40 acres. They claim not to have a preferred option, but there was only one concept on a poster board in the room – and that was Breakers.
While we don’t know how much the population will grow, we do know the costs and environmental damage would be irrecoverable.
This population growth figure needs a closer look if it’s going to form the basis of such a key decision.
I listened to the first presentation and went in person to the second presentation to ask questions so just going to offer my 2 cents as someone who was actually in the room not only is Breakers the clear preferred site by the consultants, in both word and deed but I think it is relatively clear the Breakers has already been all but chosen as the site assuming that the political will is there to push what will clearly be a locally unpopular issue through
of the 6 proposals which the consultants are ‘still considering’ 5 of them are proposals for Breakers:
-8 for an artificial island on the shoreline near Breakers
-9A/9B are two variations for the same plan for the larger quarries at Breakers which are further from the ocean and require a larger inland channel to be dug
-9C which is focused around one of the smaller quarries at breakers and requires a smaller inland channel be dug
– 10 which includes an artificial island out near the barrier reefs with a large breakwater to provide safe harbour for ships
According to the consultants the population figure for 250k is actually a conservative estimate for the next 60 years because they pegged that rate on a 2% annual growth in population whereas we currently have something closer to 4% annual growth in population
not too long ago people said there was no way we could fit 100k people and now here we are. Get ready for some Miami style gridlock traffic.
Stop it then!
Cayman has plenty of land area for 100k people
The issue Cayman has is that our government does not properly PLAN to expand, roads, public transportation services and planning sits back and lets anyone do what they want outside of the 7 mile beach corridor – we have the land for expansion we simply do no have the proper stewardship for growth and prosperity
Malta is an island that is only slightly larger than Cayman by area and they has 500,000 people and the country is not falling apart – Cayman just does not have the forward thinking leadership
If we stopped electing men who can barely read and people who barely graduated high school we might be in better straits
electing better people can only happen if there are better people in the pool. Politics is a popularity contest.
We’d be very fortunate to retain a Finance Industry in Cayman looking ahead 10 years. That’s the main pillar of the economy, and the founding basis of the local construction and consumption-based revenue and population assumptions – fully-mobile human capital, very likely going elsewhere. This foolish Cabinet doesn’t even know why.
They cannot possibly be serious about that 250k population based on every governments sheer inability to deal with the chronic infrastructure issues we’re faced with today.
Look we need more in order for our investors to recoup all the money they are spending to make this place a first class destination. Luckily the leaders and CPA chairman know this and will continue to let us expand. Keep development roaring so we can continue to boom.
What a shit show that presentation was, aka selling “the emperor new clothes”.
Imagine what we will be paying that company! And we already know exactly what to do! (Leave it alone).
God gave us a fabulous port – it’s our fault that we are out doing ourselves to accommodate these parasites that are flocking here. We are not responsible for them.
All you MP’s need to stop trying to be heroes ! You all know why you trying to build this dock! Not for us but for your Brother in the Mason!!!!
250k on this rock…oh please…u joking right? lol
Lies, damned lies, and statistics….
It’s just that simple.
These ppl are on some serious stuff. We don’t have 100,000 yet and can’t get anywhere for traffic!!! How will this small Island accommodate 275K!!! Smdh!!!
No one knows the future. With the heat in this world today, we may no longer exist … bout 250K!
Let that sink into your though skulls, elected members!
Lord help us. Earth hot, imagine hell!
kmt
We know that Cayman lacks the purpose and industry to host anywhere near 250,000 humans. It’s entirely illogical, and not based on any reliable data projections.
Importantly, the 250,000 fantasy number was extrapolated unvaryingly from the ESO data that only looks ahead to 2026. They took a short term trend of two points, and drew a functional unadjusted line from those two points to get to 250,000. It’s an absolute fabrication, and the entire basis this horror show unelected Cabinet is using to buttress their dredging policy excision, already made it seems. We need to stop this.
270K is insanity, genuinely unhinged and downright dangerous. We don’t have the infrastructure to support the population as it sits now! our roads can’t handle the level of traffic they get now! or did everyone forget what happened when the island tried to get home after that earthquake? or hell what traffic turns into just during pirates week and carnival? Our public transport system is a joke.
Where would put the amount of waste that size of the population would generate? not just trash but feces? the sewage treatment plan is a disgrace and an environmental hazard as it sits now, and no government has even looked at it in decades. Then there is the giant grass covered elephant in the room that is the dump, CIG just pulled out of the Regen project which, as much as I dislike dart having his greedy hands in everything, was our best chance for getting handle on our garbage manamgnet issues.
Our medical system is breaking with the level it has to meet NOW, they were just being lambasted in the news for not having the facilities to handle the season flu, could you imagine another pandemic with double our current population?
The bathtub we call Cayman is starting to overflow, its time to turn off the tap.
If you allow your shameless government to lead you to the edge of a cliff, who is to blame?
Look in the mirror and see who is responsible.
Fix the damn dump Juju
At least they will have room for all the kids at the Brac High School.
This is madness. Imagine sitting in traffic with a population of $250k, imagine trying to buy land or a house then? What happened to sustainability of our environment?
All disappeared before thine eyes!
This is scary What your so called leaders are saying . Seriously.
I’m tuned in to what’s going on in this country but it pains me to see our young people ignore it. Seems they just want to drink and party when issues like this will plague us all for a really long time. Please share this with your friends and family and tell them to tune in and speak out! We can’t handle a larger population and the ridiculous spending has to stop.
Blame the young people! Not all young people are ignoring it, they getting educated and leaving, perhaps their elders did all the partying, selling out amidst the MPs, governments corruption and greed, leaving nothing for
the young people! What are you doing about it?
Minister Bryan is a danger to this country. He needs to be gone from office next election.
He needs to be gone now. He is a convicted criminal – a few times.
Way too many people. Fix the damn dump Andre please. 🙏
How about honesty? Where is basic honesty and truth on your CIG priority wish list? KYD$2.1 billion is still being concealed from the UK FCDO. How do we expect transparency or good governance when the Cabinet continues to be unwilling to be transparent, or even compliant? Let’s start with that.
Andre is busy rubbing his beads!
Take this sort of thing back to England with you.
Caymanians wrecking cayman.
a select few if i may add. They should be exiled when the are run out of office.
Well ‘a select few’ are destroying Cayman, who voted them in, why are they not being stopped by the majority if they are only ‘a select few’. Exiled to where? Mount Trashmore!
Caymanians wake up you now understand their plan vote these political scum out immediately!
We can only vote in, and from the weak same-old dim, crooked, and tired offerings. There is no mechanism to compel enforcement of the already compulsory Nolan Principles or even deliver true Balance Sheet positions.
Keep Andre though…he is the only one getting anything done.
Why not make customs more efficient instead of taking a week to clear stuff. Also wouldn’t be a bad idea to put a lot of them on a diet so they move faster.
Option #5 makes sense from a logistical standpoint however North Sound is perceived as an environmental no go area and other factors such as tourism, recreation and elite housing developments surrounding it.
A first class cargo port needs a road link or dedicated lane for HGVs for unhindered transit to Port Warehouse facilities, deep water proximal to shore and ideally it needs be protected by a breakwater. No doubt the undersized inland Port Warehouse will have to be used as staging point for pickups closer to George Town so there will be a requirement for a new one built close to the new Port.
I see location 11, Half Moon Bay as the most ideal location, high ground for the container port & warehouse and relatively short distance from the proposed new East West arterial.
Agreed! Although Breakers would be my thought, as the quary can be utilised.
You do realise the bottom of the quarry is essentially at sea level? The old Pedro quarry would be better utilised as an entertainment venue. Put a hardened dome over it and voila you have impenetrable hurricane shelter too except for controlling any water ingress.
Look at the Eden Project in Cornwall, England, it could also be better used for controlled environment agriculture.
Who cares. The climate folks have us all moving to Scotland anyway.
Hey, don’t get all thumbs down with me. Take it up with the Caymanian climate people who are planning our national exit to Bonnie Jockland.
Option # 4 looks good!
250K population! If you had any doubts before, that the current administration and the one before didn’t/don’t have you or your children’s/grandchildren’s interest in mind here is the proof slapping you right in the face. Keep allowing these maniacs to have 8-12-16 years in office courtesy of the voting Caymanians, ya’ll have no one to blame but yourselves.
LTD da Unbozzler
Climate change will flood most of Cayman anyway so population growth will be controlled by nature
Another extinctionist!
The person that doesn’t recognise sarcasm has entered the chat room
We’re glad you could make it!
Most of the island will be under water by then. Except for the Great Trashmore Range.
Hilarious.
I do not want to be living in Cayman with 250k human beings. That just sounds disgusting.
Agree. That is not why I came and made my home here 30 years ago! Consecutive governments and so called experts have destroyed Cayman and are planning to totally devastate it. Why want more and more, just leave it alone and develop marine life and natural habitat again. Will not be a third world ‘country’ but become the Islands of destitution and only development will be an alcatraz.
Alright Boomer.
Define ‘Boomer’ Czar of zilch.
Please go back to playing video games and let the adults have a conversation.
Sit down blamer!
Well, head off to Jockland now ya tool.
Im gonna go out on a limb and guess where this thing is gonna end up now that I see it noted on the map. Let’s make the claim and see how it ages:
It’s going in number 5.
The idea of trucking all our cargo through residential and coastal areas from breakers to GT is asinine. The idea that we’re going to cut in to the land of breakers to create this thing is equally asinine and frankly ridiculous to even consider.
It is public record that an absolute ton of land near section 5 is owned by Dart. And it makes sense to land your cargo in the industrial park so it can go right to the warehouses and others who use them.
They will dredge a trench in the north sound from the channel to this part of industrial park and that’s where it’ll go. There’s a straight line to do it without hitting any coral or disturbing much.
As for this issue of 250,000 people. It’s not a question of that being realistic or not…we will be OUT of cargo capacity in roughly 10 years. Given how damn slow we are to do anything (how’s the dump these days?) we need to start now.
Forget breakers. It’s going in area 5.
Has Jay seen the map? He is going to insist that North Side also be considered, and like the Electoral Boundaries Commission this could be sent back for a redo.
From the cargo dock on Harbour Drive to the distribution center on Portland Road is less than one mile in a straight line.
Before we decide to build a new dock, why don’t we ask ourselves some simple questions:
Are the containers of cargo arriving at the dock being unloaded(1) and transported to the distribution center(2) in the most efficient manner?
If we can’t answer these simple questions then we should build a cruise port for every cruise line, with a separate designated pier for each of their ships, and a new cargo pier in George Town for every shipping line.
The caymanian/expat ratio would be 1:10. Grand Cayman would suffocate in its own filth.
The quality of life would be non-existent. Health decline would be dramatic. Crime would sky rocket.
Don’t forget to build a crematorium for there is not enough land left for traditional cemeteries.
This comment made tears fall from my eyes.. what have we done.. what are we doing.. who are we building this for..?
Caymanians… we are a dying breed.
It’s hard to understand what you are talking about, when there are more Caymanians than ever have existed before. If we want to speak to breeding, then thankfully quite a lot more genetically and mentally diverse. The newer ones certainly aren’t the problem in the context of this display: here, we can observe those with generations of Caymanian grandparents, elected to government, and delighting in the destruction of what we should all hold dear. Let’s all hope and pray that this grade of backward counter intuitive, even corrupt thinking, dies as soon as possible. We could accelerate the cleaning of this house, by changing the Elections Law to disqualify those with criminal records (!), and removing the Caymanian grandparent requirement that doesn’t seem to be conferring aptitude, values, or ethics. Don’t we all deserve better than this?
Doesn’t matter how much meat in your pot, you can still make the soup too diluted.
This is insanity.
Are the dump calculations also being made on a population of 250k??
NO!
This madness needs to stop. We need to get our population and its growth under control. Imported labour is supposed to serve us, not overwhelm us.
We can easily control our population and need to if we are to survive. We cannot simply sit back and watch it continue to expand without any effective controls.
And by the way, there are already more than 82,000 people here right now.
It’s not really that easy. Everyone says it’s easy.
Let’s say you were to reduce or slow or cap work permits. If that slowing is out of sync with the market demands how are you going to decide who gets their workers and who doesn’t?
And if it’s capped or slowed do we do it by jobs, or by income brackets, or come up with some system for allowing a mix but not allowing growth?
It’s not easy unfortunately. I certainly don’t know how to do it. And it would be a much more complex endeavor than our Pr system which is a mess, or any other system.
And what happens if we start collapsing parts of the economy by intent or mistake? We can end up just like every other island nation in the Caribbean and be broke.
Actually, if we enforced term limits and ensured that Caymanians were equipped to perform more roles with greater expertise, it would be easy. Granting permanent rights to too many, too quickly, is what has got us in this mess. Transient labour need not be adding to the permanent population in the way that it is.
That may very well be true. But sending someone home on rollover wont prevent someone else from taking that job. Permanence is only a part of the overall population discussion. We could have 2 yr term limits, it would likely not change the population figures.