The relocation of South Sound Road could still happen.
A press release issued by the National Roads Authority through Government Information Services last week indicated the NRA had neither endorsed nor given permission for the realignment of South Sound Road. In a front-page article last Tuesday, Cayman Net News apparently construed the NRA’s statement to mean the road shift would not be allowed and wrote the headline: ‘NRA: No South Sound Rd shift.’
Emerald Sound Project Architect Burns Conolly said that was incorrect.
‘The headline is erroneous,’ he said. ‘We have not officially requested from the NRA board permission to relocate the road to date.’
Two NRA board members, Department of Environment Director Gina Ebanks-Petrie and Carson Ebanks, who sits on the board as the permanent secretary to the Ministry of Communications, Works and Infrastructure, both confirmed the NRA had not made any decisions with respect to the road shift, and had in fact, had not been asked to do so yet.
‘The application hasn’t been made,’ said Mr. Ebanks.
Mr. Conolly explained that two applications have been filed, one to the Department of Environment for costal works and one to the Planning Department for the subdivision.
Mrs. Ebanks-Petrie said as a matter of policy, the Department of Planning would not consider the application until the coastal works application was dealt with, which will ultimately be Cabinet’s decision.
‘The Department of Environment has no decision-making authority,’ she said, adding that the DoE, however, does advise both the Cabinet and the Central Planning Authority.
‘We’ve received both planning and costal works applications [with respect to Emerald Sound],’ she said, adding that the DoE’s report for the Central Planning Authority has been written and submitted and that it was in the process of writing the report with respect to the coastal works application.
Although it has not yet officially asked for permission to realign South Sound Road, Mr. Conolly said the NRA was well aware of the plan and had expressed no major misgivings about it.
‘In my personal discussions over the past six months with the NRA, they have indicated nothing that will be technically wrong with altering the route,’ he said.
Although the NRA has not offered any comment on or given an approval for the realignment of the road, Acting Managing Director Edward Howard confirmed the NRA had no objections to the road being realigned.
‘We… are deferring to Planning, DoE and others before offering any technical advice on the realignment,’ he said.
The section of road that is proposed to be moved is between Belair Drive, just east of the Cayman Crossings condominium development, and the Old Crewe Road/South Sound Road intersection. If approved, the road would be moved north, or inland, slightly. A service road, placed roughly where the road is now, would connect to the new road a single location.
Mr. Conolly said there was a misconception by many people that the area that would be affected by the realignment was farther west, were there is a nice ocean view from the current road. He pointed out that people cannot even see the ocean from most of the places on the current road where it will be realigned.
There will be several benefits to moving the road, Mr. Conolly said, including making it straighter, increasing its height above sea level, and putting if farther from the coast.
‘It will have superior hurricane resistance,’ he said.
A dedicated bicycle lane and pedestrian walkway will also be built next to the road, Mr. Conolly said.
There is also a second road impacted by Emerald Sound, that being the long-ago gazetted road corridor to the north of the development.
The developer of Emerald Sound, Rene Hislop, met with the NRA several times to work out an alternative alignment of the road corridor, Mr. Howard said.
‘The alignment of the corridor dissected [Mr. Hislop’s] land at an awkward angle,’ he said. ‘We settled on an alignment that pushed the future road further north towards Crewe Road Bypass, also known as Linford Pierson Highway.’
The proposed Emerald Sound development will include 82 house lots and a canal that will require the building of a bridge on the realigned South Sound Road.
Mr. Conolly said the canal would not require dredging of the entire South Sound, only a small portion near the shore, some of which is dead mangrove swamp.
The realignment of the road, if granted, would deepen the properties of an already existing subdivision of 12 ocean front lots. A house currently sits on one of those properties.
Many roads near the coast on Grand Cayman have been moved farther inland over the years, Mr. Conolly said.
‘West Bay Road used to be where buildings are now,’ he said, adding that the main road near Ocean Club used to be closer to the shore as well.
‘It’s not unusual after a hurricane for a road to be relocated farther away from the sea,’ he said.
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