South Sound residents have hit back at Cayman Enterprise City’s application to modify existing plans for a large office and housing campus, which it dubs an “urban city”.
The developer has requested planning approval to remove the lakes and reclaimed wetland park from its original ‘masterplan’ in order to make way for a school and housing.
These will add “significant value and benefit to the entire community”, it said, adding previous plans were “unbalanced” and did not consider residential and educational needs.
However, the Department of Environment has said the South Sound drainage basin where the 70-acre site lies has become “severely fragmented” by development.
The proposed modifications will likely increase the amount of hard surfaced ground and decrease the number of permeable areas, it added, worsening the risk of flooding during wet season.
The masterplan
Cayman Enterprise City is a business hub operating special economic zones, allowing foreign companies to set up an offshore presence in the Cayman Islands and benefit from zero tax.
It first submitted plans to create a large commercial and residential park in 2015. Over the next five years, it submitted several additions and modifications – which were all approved.
The mixed-use development, located south of the new proposed arterial highway, includes a city centre, commercial hub, boardwalk and island, and luxury housing development.
Original plans included the 10.7-acre Enterprise Lagoon and an outdoor mangrove and wetland botanic lagoon park named Living Waters.
“Water quality and filtration is of the utmost importance,” the masterplan said, “and creating a sustainable biological filtration system and continuous water flow will be essential to a healthy eco system.”
However, an application for modification of those plans was published on Thursday, 23 March, and is on the Central Planning Authority’s agenda for its next meeting on 29 March.
The document said Cayman Enterprise City proposed to forego the excavation of the lakes which were going to be used as a source of fill and to create water features.
JacksonLaw attorneys, representing the developer, said “these lakes were not intended to be used, were not approved to be used and would never have been used for drainage”.
Storm-water fears
Gina Ebanks-Petrie, director of the Department of Environment, expressed several concerns over the revised plans, including the removal of the lakes.
The South Sound basin is a non-tidal mangrove wetland surrounded by the beach ridge and road to the south, and higher elevation, drier land and highway to the north, she said.
The beach ridge and roads are relatively impermeable to seawater and the mangrove swamp is flooded principally by rainwater.
Excess rainwater not retained by the mangrove wetland basin gradually percolates through the beach ridge and mangrove coastlines along the length of the South Sound lagoon.
However, the construction of South Sound Road and the beginning of developments which reclaimed portions of the mangrove wetland has changed that, the director explained.
Developments, such as Cayman Enterprise City’s new hub, exacerbate flooding within the area and add to water-quality issues of the receiving waters, she said.
Lakes are ‘integral’
Along with the environment director’s comments, the planning authority received six letters of objection.
The first, signed by 15 local property owners, spoke of concerns of ongoing drainage and flooding issues in South Sound.
“The lakes in the original masterplan were presented as integral to storm water management, however, these have now been removed,” it read.
The owners suggested a storm water management plan should be developed for the entire development area.
Another objection letter from representatives of all 168 units of beachfront residential community Vela said they were also concerned about the removal of lakes and wetlands.
They stressed that this, among other issues, could have a negative impact on Vela’s current drainage and flooding problems.
“If CEC builds anything next to Vela property, we need to be 100% sure it doesn’t flood onto Vela land,” the letter said.
Other concerns included the loss of mangrove wetland, the change in use of the land, access roads, building height, lack of notification, and extension of the site another five-acres.
Related Videos
Where is our minister of sustainability and climate change resilience? At the beach??