CPA taking Boggy Sand case to Privy Council
(CNS): The courtroom battle over the redevelopment of a controversial cabana and seawall in a marine park area on Boggy Sand Beach in West Bay that has pitched two government boards against each other is headed to London. In a surprising turn of events, given that the Central Planning Authority has lost a judicial review and an appeal over its refusal to follow a National Conservation Council (NCC) directive, has decided to take the case to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC).
At a closed-door meeting two weeks ago, on 6 September, the CPA members made a decision that they would continue to pursue the legal battle at the court of final appeal for the UK overseas territories, according to the minutes of the meeting published on the planning department’s website Wednesday.
The case relates to a proposed project that the DoE said should be refused because of its impact on the marine environment and because the failing structure was at that point in the sea. However, the CPA ignored the technical advice and the order and granted planning permission. The NCC successfully challenged that refusal through a judicial review.
The short minutes record that, based on legal advice from the CPA lawyer, understood to still be Sammy Jackson, and following discussions among the board members, they resolved to appeal the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal’s decision to the JCPC.
Tens of thousands of dollars have already been spent on the case, which the planning department is currently liable for. The latest development follows a request by Premier Wayne Panton for the civil service to make cuts to its current spending.
After the decision by the appeal court at the beginning of this month, Panton, who has responsibility for the NCC and the Department of Environment, said he hoped that all parties could now move forward. “This latest ruling once again confirms the legal basis for factoring environmental concerns into decision-making processes… I am comfortable that the courts have settled this matter once and for all and there can be no more room for debate,” he said in a statement.
Pantons said that government “agencies and boards must move forward according to the law, working collaboratively to advance the country’s vision for sustainable development that balances our built and natural environment”.
But less than a week after the appeal court’s decision, the CPA was discussing how to continue the fight against the NCC and the DoE, especially the powers of the DoE director.
CNS has contacted the entities involved, as well as both the premier and the planning minister, who could solve the issue by directing the CPA to accept the ruling. We are awaiting a response.
See the brief minutes of the CPA meeting in the CNS Library.
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Category: development, Local News, Marine Environment, Science & Nature
Can’t get a decent increment from CIG but can waste such public money.
this is not the first time the CPA has disregarded directives from other Ministries and boards. They constantly overstep their authority and make decisions outside the scope of their legal capacity. I hope the case is dealt with in the UK and put that board is always out of control
Fools all.
A country divided cannot stand
What else do we expect from a government of independent ego-maniacs? The Minister and his CPA minions should be held personally liable for every cent expended on this crap.
What happened to Fin Cayman? The DoE had a list of issues. Was Fin built too close to the see?
Only in Cayman you would find CPA fighting against DOE. Something is really wrong here. How will benefit CPA to fight to destroy Cayman.
Heck NO!!
Another $$million bill for we people to pay??!!
Why is the CPA fighting this so hard? One can only assume that they have something to gain. If this was for a local person who had acres of land to use for agriculture, they would come back with all kinds of reasons to deny the application. Or what if someone wants to add a room to an existing structure to accommodate a growing family? They would be required to go through enough red tape to get an approval or they have to give up. CPA seems to approve plans based on who you are not on what is right or legal.
yes follow the money.
“Where should I protest, whom should I implore, Senators, because the republic is being torn apart for any kind of audacious profiteer? Should I complain to the Roman people? They are so corrupted by bribes that they offer themselves and their fortunes for sale.”
The Government needs to step in here and put the CPA in their place. Who are they to continue to waste the people’s funds to further try to help this one homeowner or is it that their ego’s are hurt becuase they lost..
Every single one on that board needs to either resign or be fired. How stupid does this look for two of our Government departments fighting each other all the way up to the Privy Court.
The Minister needs to change the board immediately and if not, we the people can only stand to reason that he is in collusion with these members and to this one Landowner..
Stand up and be counted Jay..I know you know better.
You lost me at the first line given the level of incompetency we see in pretty much every department of the CIG.
What is the story with the condos being squeezed in across the road from the cabana? if the old fence is the property line they are just about on it.
By the looks of what is happening one must think there is some collusion between the developer and the CPA.
When you have a member who is a consultant to large developers, what would you expect? Yet all is allowed by our elected leaders
It’s called ‘business as usual’
We need development and all the great benefits it brings to this country. You foolish people are always complaining yet love all the benefits it brings as well as the wonderful developments we have (Camana Bay for one). Grow up and thank the CPA.
We have already developed every inch of free space and air available. When is enough enough.
you must be kidding and your name is ?? Asking for a frend.
Your revelation is about twenty years late.
Throw the CPA in the bin and start again.
CPA gives permission to who they want to give permission to. Many persons cannot get planning permission for simple projects or are given a hard time and the run around with lots of “necessary” stipulations which cause added expense. It is amazing how “high end” projects get passed by CPA so easily! It doesn’t matter how they disregard the laws which apply to regular persons (such as getting permission to practically build in the sea, while locals have to have so many feet away from boundaries). I causes persons to wonder if there is not corruption within these boards.
Corruption? There is more corruption in our elected
parliament than any place I have heard of………….other
than the U.S.A. !
Fire the board, and add this to the list of reasons why Sammy Jackson should not get elected if he chooses to run again.
i totally agree
It’s good if this gets sorted out by the privy council. Then it will finally be settled who is responsible for what. Reading the judgement of the appeals court is dizzying and I don’t think they did a great job of clarifying the issues at all, even if they are right it was worded very confusingly. Let them sort out their duties and then move on.
Why don’t you pay for it then?
Just Another Day in Absurdistan
Even for Absurdistan this decision of the CPA is crazy.
Speaking of political cronies and decisions that are clearly not in the public interest ….
CNS whatever happened to the case of the ‘misplaced’ North Side topsoil – has the prosecution file been lost/abandoned/conveniently forgotten/??
CNS: These things tend to move very slowly through the system, but Wendy’s keeping an eye on it.
Remediating the seawall will not create any damage to the environment.
If it is not remediated it will fall into the sea which will damage the environment and lead to the collapse of the abutting road seawall creating further untold damage to the environment.
Difficult to understand DOE and NCA’s position regarding this controversy.
Are you a marine biologist/oceanographer? You’ll excuse us if we don’t take your word for it and instead listen to people who are trained in the subject.
No it won’t.
It’s not really about the sea wall, although the beach was fine before that was put in. After all, the court of appeal simply sent the decision back to the CPA for reconsideration but acting reasonably this time after considering advice from the NCC. It’s that the CPA doesn’t want to have to take advice or directions from the DOE or NCC. Want to be able to do what they want ant without considering environmental impact. It’s not about this particular planning decision – it’s about all the ones in the future where the CPA doesn’t want it’s hand tied. Ask yourself why, and whose interests the CPA is really concerned about.
The Chief Officer Eric Bush is squarely behind this and is responsible for authorizing the costs that will come out of the planning ministry budget. He controls the purse strings while moonlighting for his buddies in development who have a vested interest in this matter reaching a satisfactory conclusion for their side. That is the only way the CPA can afford the process to apply for leave to appeal to the Privy Council that will reach at least several million dollars if heard.
What does the Deputy Governor as head of the civil service have to say about this?
We have two government bodies funded and operated by civil servants ending up before the privy council. This is proof that the charade of a world class civil service is fully exposed for the world to see. What til this hits the international headlines.
I think it’s time for Governor’s Office to intervene and look past all the pretty talk and the bogus excuses offered. The civil service and multiple ministries and departments are at the center of the national embarrassment. Time to hold the process and persons accountable by stopping the madness. This matter will confirm Cayman is a Banana Republic.
If Cayman had an army given the mindset of leaders in the civil service there would likely be a military coup d’etat in order to get there way every week on all sort of matters. God help us.
I suppose there are many terrible things that can be said about Eric, but trying to put this one on him is pushing the limit.
Chief Officers do NOT control Ministerial Budgets. They do NOT decide where money is going to be spent.
This is 100% the fault of elected officials. And we elected them, in most cases well knowing their character, so Da Wha We Get!
Chief Officers are responsible for securing and allocating all funding or budgets in their ministries and portfolios. They make the recommendations and requests to their respective ministers. The ministers then battle it out with their elected colleagues to defend their requests in order to secure the funding in the governments budget.
You do not understand how it works. The Chief Officers control everything in their Ministry therefore can make or break the elected ministers because there are no consequences for failing to follow the political directions.
Exactly. Just look at the last overspending that Eric was responsible for with the overseas offices.
Lack of accountability and disciplinary action by Franz.
Now Eric is green-lighting funds for CPA to go to Privy Council after two sound defeats in Courts. Smells fishy.
We need an FOI or an audit of this process for who approves the funding for this. And an audit NOT done by Franz.
Makes sense. Come election time every Minister can their hand on heart and say my Chief Officer made me do it. I believe they even keep the credit cards in their own wallets and only temporarily hand them over to the Ministers when the bills arrive. Is that correct?
No 3:23 they do not control everything. The Minister has the final responsibility on how funds are expended. In practice of course they delegate a lot to the CO but the ultimate responsibility is theirs. If a CO says no minister don’t waste funds on the Privy Council and the minister says that’s what I want to expend them on the CO cannot stop it.
Is the CPA blinded by power? Sore losers. It is clear from looking at the building that it is not possible to rebuild without digging into the seabed. That requires the approval of the Cabinet. Residents of West Bay what are you doing about this? People of Cayman are you satisfied for your tax dollars to be used to fight this?
One can only assume that CPA has no other choice to proceed with the appeal. Reading between the lines, one may surmise that they are facing a massive law suit from the developer if the decision does not go in the CPAs favor.
Actually, one can easily assume otherwise. – And that the judgement is written by a senior judge for lawyers and so may be a bit oddly written is not a justification to appeal it, to other judges. – But, to help you out, just jump to sections 46 & 47 of the judgement, kindly archived by CNS. “46. In short, the CPA was required to seek the approval of the NCC under Section 41(4). It never did so. … 47. That is sufficient to dispose of the appeal. The grant of planning permission was unlawful and
must be quashed on that ground.” straight up plain reading of the law, so one can NOT “only assume that CPA has no other choice to proceed with the appeal” (your words).
Thanks for the citations, a good read. But, I think you missed my point. Most people reading about this development, including myself, are left scratching our collective heads as to what could possibly be the motivation for the CPA to press ahead with further appeal when the legal arguments (as you have demonstrated) is so highly stacked against them.
I am only surmising here, and my guess is just that, and as good as anyone else. Is it that it is a last ditch effort to avoid a law suit from the developer if the decision is not overturned?
uncivil. Seriously you need help. You blame a decision of a private sector board of professionals on Eric Bush.
I am concerned about you.
You might not agree but the points raised by uncivil servant are factually and procedurally correct. They understand how the civil service operates and the role of chiefs who hold the real power not the politicians
But they are correct
All CPA Board members who voted in favour of this should put their money where their mouth is. Make them pay the legal fees of this latest BS action if it is unsuccessful (which it clearly will be).
They ought to, why should the public purse pay for this? No wonder there’s nothing to fix education.
This is what happens when everyone of the CPA board are developers, who profit from the approval all the plans.
The whole CPA is completely conflicted.
Its similar to a parole committee made up of the criminals up for parole, of course they will always say yes.
The CPA are developer lead so this comes as no surprise as the decision has ramifications for their developer friends. Its an absolutely shining example of cronyism and the lack of respect for the environment displayed by Caymanian developers / planning authorities.
Not only Caymanian developers.
But Caymanian planning authorities. Caymanians just need to face facts.
New Caymanians make up most of the boards and committees nowadays. Have you faced that fact ?
The Government , taking itself to a higher court, because it isn’t happy with itself.
Think about this for a minute.
CNS – your estimate of ‘tens of thousands’ of the people’s money being wasted by the CPA grasping at power is low. The actual cost to the people of the CPA power grab is already in the hundreds of thousands and with a Privy Council challenge will be closer to a million.
The law needs to be changed to remove the blank checks given to the CPA and other boards permitting them to waste public resources in order to preserve and expand their power so that they can continue to do as they please.
Auditor General – please do a value for money audit of the CPA’s processes and actions
The cost of litigation is expensive.
No further evidence is required to demonstrate the CPA’s contempt for environmental protection, regulations, public safety, and engineering common sense. This corruption thriving openly under the “sustainability” regime. PACT and the Governor should dismantle the SAGCs and Boards that don’t know what time it is. The ACC need to sniff out the motivating payoff trail and make some arrests.
Who is the actual Premier around here???
I think he’s given up.
Catron
Good question.
Is Wayne in charge of anything? Anything at all? The CPA, a body appointed by Cabinet, feels free to ignore him. The planning minister feels free to ignore him. The civil service feels free to ignore his exhortations as finance minister to cut spending. And Wayne does….nothing. As finance minister he can cut the funding. As Premier he could demand that Cabinet replace the CPA board. He could fire the planning minister for not following government policy. But he does…nothing. Paper Premier. Not I charge of his own shoelaces. Complete waste of space and oxygen.
This is just another example of a bunch of over paid, pompous little cry babies who can not accept the fact that they were wrong. As it is not their money they are throwing away and you have a lawyer who has nothing to loose and all to gain then they just stomp their little feet and press on. This whole sham needs to be stopped right now and the whole bunch need to be dismissed including the lawyer who has political ambitions. What a great example to set along with all the other nonsense this government has going on.
what a complete and utter farce. this shows the mentality within the cig; what are petty squabbles relative to the immense challenges facing these islands, being elevated to a national issue. if any senior civil servants and honourable members read the comments in cns- this government is a joke, albeit one in terribly bad taste. The damage being done by you total bunch of clowns is irreparable.
PPM and UDP unfortunately did far more damage than the PACT. The truth is that the Cayman Islands has not had good leadership in the last 20 years or so.
Agreed. from one group of selfish, uneducated, pompous, greedy fools to the next.
When they fail , everyone on the CPA board should be fired for wasting public funds.
The CPA board should be replaced immediately!
YES! All members must be replaced now as a matter of urgency.
CPA members and Ministry of Planning have officially lost the plot. This is how public monies are wasted and there are clearly no consequences for being wasteful with government funds. All involved in this mess must go!
#NotWithMyMoney.
Tax payers being used to fund ego trips.
Taxpayers money being used to protect developers
BINGO!
You hit the nail directly on it’s head!
They should all be replaced!
What a fiasco!
Typical of the curent Government.
Fire the planning board. What absolute morons. What a waste if government resources.
Environment should prevail.
Bunch of overgrown children with fragile egos.
Get a clue !
maybe north side MLA can help the cabanas at kaibo public park be reclaimed as these are now in the water…atleast half of them. probably using the fill piled up there to resolve that issue. it’s there marine works application submitted. what about the North Side low income, no shade development…isn’t there laws to maintain native trees. never-ending crap and lawlessness continues….continues to ensure being reelected again. fix the dump. joka’s
You say there’s fill piled up there? Jay can have someone remove that eyesore and have someone transport it to Hutland immediately.
You forgot to mention the road widening happening on the Queens HWY- guess who got that job?
Remove the CPA board completely for failing to take the welfare of the people onto consideration when making decisions like this that undermine the core value of serving the people. Enough is enough, no one wants this.
WTF? Let the board of directors pay for this from their pockets.
Easy to spend other people’s money over frivolous matters
Bunch of egomaniacs. Pull the plug on them and make these rogue CPA members pay the legal fees personally. Always easy to blow public money.
Defund the CPA!
The Cayman’s are not a real place. It is more like fantasy island run by woeful civil servants that are lied to frequently by their boss and a collection of politicians that are overpaid but appear to be for rent to the highest bidders.
It’s the *CAYMAN ISLANDS*. But yes, agree with your comment otherwise. LOL
‘The Caymans’ is an accurate geographical term to refer to the islands of the group.
That is correct. The Cayman Islands, which (geographically speaking) is an archipelago comprised of three Islands (Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman), is a jurisdiction (or “Island-nation”) that is specifically a British Overseas Territory.
Someone in work acerbically but accurately commented that the Cayman Islands Government, and the World Class Civil Service™ are what you’d expect from:
“A ‘Model United Nations’ lesson, in a special school”
Personally, I thought that the comparison was quite harsh on special needs kids.
If we can have a Framework for Fiscal Responsibility that prevents crazy-ass MPs from spending money on things that we can’t afford, why doesn’t Britain implement a Framework for Planning Responsibility that will shutdown the CPA and prevent any crazy-ass MP surrogates from making planning decisions that will destroy the environment?
Time the public know who is funding this debacle. Expose the land owners hiding behind a corporate entity.
#followthemoney!
🟢Protect our environment
🟠Halt overexpansion
🔴Stop duplicity
It’s not the land owner that’s the issue. It’s the developers that sit on the shoulders of the CPA.
This is a national disgrace and unnecessary.
CNS lol…. “Tens of thousands of dollars”
They had blackstone chambers KC for the CoA – try hundreds of thous to millions.
Who’s on this COA board? Are they really going to waste more money on legal advice. From who?
Mr Premier please shut this chapter up and replace this board with good brain!
a$$holes wasting public money for no good reason. This will be millions.
Waste of oxygen
The collection of egos in the Ministry and CPA are out of control. This will cost the public purse millions if the leave to appeal to the Privy Council is successful.
The Premier and Minister of Planning Jay Ebanks along with their team of technocrats should commit to attempting to negotiate a genuine compromise by trying to work together to address issues because no law is perfect. The appeal judgement was very clear.
Developers will be salivating and pushing for this spectacle to play out in the courts as they are not interested in any belts and braces on development and population growth.
Very correct that attempting to negotiate a genuine compromise is most prudent and intelligible approach.
Unfortunately, when public officials are given the opportunity to negotiate a reasonable settlement, they do not engage and attempt to prevent litigious disputes to be settled privately.
Reasonable minds do not prevail, which defies logic. Perhaps there may be a change to the approach in the future, but the same modus operandi remains as the status quo.
Fire all CPA members that voted for this immediately and forever blackball them from serving on any government board in any capacity whatsoever. If they work for government, fire them now.
Also, publicly name the politicos that appointed them.
The CPA (and its attorney) don’t appear to appreciate that they lost on every point of the appeal before the CICA.
Failed on challenge to the NCC Guidance Notes – paragraph 27.
Failed in substituting s7 of Planning & Dev Act for s41(3) consultation under NCA – paragraph 31.
Failed to seek approval under s41(4) NCA, for an action likely to have an adverse affect, whether directly or indirectly, on the Marine Protected Area – paragraph 46, 47.
Failed to give any thought to s41(4)”That too is fatal to this appeal” – paragraph 62.
Failed on its argument that an NCC direction under s41(5)(b) is a direction, directive or order within s 2 of NCA – paragraph 77.
Failed on its argument that delegation under s 13(3) of NCA was repealed by the Public Authorities Act.
So what errors of facts or law are they going to argue for leave to appeal to the Privy Council?
Their minutes of 6 September give no indication. So they have failed to grasp the instruction to minute their reasoning as well.
> they have failed to grasp the instruction to minute their reasoning as well.
Beautiful comment and so true
LOL. The Privy Council is expert at killing off BS like this.
The CPA board should be personally liable for these legal costs.
Stop wasting OUR money coz of YOUR ego and arrogance.