From
http://www.amigoe.com/artman/publish/artikel_43927.php
The government is going to take on the palapas’ proliferation
28 Jun, 2008, 18:13 (GMT -04:00)
The government is going to take on the proliferation of the number of palapas and other structure son the beach.
ORANJESTAD – The number of palapas (reed covering-over) has increased so much in a short period of time that the government has decided to take measures, and so contain this ‘proliferation’. The government has established a committee for this. This committee must figure out where the public part of the beach intersects with the long-lease part of the hotels.
The proliferation of palapas has consequences for the beaches of Palm beach and Eagle Beach. A lot of structures have risen lately on Palm Beach in front of the hotels. Especially the number of palapas is growing on Eagle Beach. This is due to the many timeshare complexes that are being built on the other side of Irausquin Boulevard. Apart from palapas that continually are built bigger and more luxurious, the hotels have also placed showers, changing rooms, and bars on the beach. Some hotels on Palm- as well as Eagle Beach have built large outside bars on the beach, where romantic dinner is served on the beach.
It isn’t allowed to build anything on public beaches anyway, assured DOW that also knows that it happens for all that. An employee of DOW tried a few weeks ago to prevent a hotel from pouring asphalt on the beach for flooring. The police was notified when the hotel refused to stop with the work. But to the dissatisfaction of the DOW-employee, the police did nothing.
TOLERATION POLICY
Problem is that the government has until now tolerated the structures on the beach, says Marlon Croes, head of DOW’s policy supervision department. It is for that matter not clear where the long-lease grounds of most of the hotels run. “The beach is public. The government has tolerated in the past that hotels placed palapas on public beaches. But we noticed after awhile that new structures were built on the beach. This affects the quality of the beach. But it is also difficult for us to determine what is legal and what is illegal and what is built on long-lease property and what on public beach.”
Eagle Beach Boy
