Tourism zoning sought for Ritz-Carlton property

An application has been submitted to permit tourism development on more than 200 acres surrounding the Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman – a move that could pave the way for expansion of the luxury hotel. 

The Department of Planning wants to change the zoning of the land from predominantly public open space to hotel/tourism. 

The application seeks to bring the zoning up to date for parts of the land, including the hotel, which are already used for tourism.  

It would also pave the way for future expansion of the hotel by officially legitimizing any further tourism development plans on the large section of land to the east of Esterley Tibbetts Highway, bordering the North Sound. 

“The number of rooms within the Cayman Islands will need to increase to accommodate the growing number of visitors to our shores. It is assumed that the land will be used by the Ritz-Carlton to further develop their hotel site and thus add hotel rooms to the overall stock for the Cayman Islands,” the Department of Tourism wrote in a submission to the Central Planning Authority on the rezoning application. 

Any expansion of the hotel would require a separate planning application. The rezoning request seeks only to change the types of development permitted on the land, outlined in the Cayman Islands Development Plan. 

It is not clear whether the hotel’s owners, Five Mile Capital, have any plans for expansion. They declined to comment when contacted by the Cayman Compass.  

When they bought the hotel for US$177.5 million in 2012, representatives for the private equity firm said their plan was to make significant investment in the hotel, with a view to selling it on within five to 10 years. 

“Over the next several years, the plan would be to put additional capital into the asset to renovate the hotel,” a spokesman told the Compass at the time.  

Among the plans outlined was an expansion of the nine-hole Blue-Tip golf course, which is on the larger parcel of land earmarked for rezoning in this application. 

In reality, the zoning of the land as public open space has not stopped tourism development – under the terms of a lease agreement between the developer and government. 

However, rezoning would smooth the way for further planning applications and provide a degree of comfort to potential buyers that such expansion of the resort was an option. 

One issue raised in a recent discussion of the rezone application at the Central Planning Authority’s June meeting was the potential loss of public open space. 

The Central Planning Authority, in its analysis of the application, acknowledges that “upzoning” the site of the hotel, called Area A in the discussion, could be justified to “bring the hotel into conformance with the existing uses.” 

But it expresses some concern about rezoning the land to the east of the highway. 

“The key concern in rezoning Area B to hotel/tourism is the immediate loss of public open space for the area and the district.”  

It points out that the land makes up nearly 70 percent of the public open space in the George Town district, saying such parcels have a “national role in providing publicly accessible green space.” 

However, it adds that the land is not currently being used for that purpose and is largely taken up by the golf course, tennis courts and canal development. It recommends authorities seek to balance “the present reality that the site is zoned as public open space but is not being used for those purposes as contradictory development has occurred,” with the “present reality that a long-standing lease agreement is in place stating that hotel uses are within the lease parameters.” 

The department suggests that as an alternative to zoning the entire parcel as hotel/tourism, that a 5.1-acre sliver of land could be retained as public open space.