Ritz offically 'announced'

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Key point of this article is :

Case is not over yet
Before the Amigoe, Yarzagaray also refers to consideration 4.10 of the judge in the verdict of the administrative summary proceedings. This reads: “Needless to say that the Hotelco, as holder of the construction permit, is allowed to start with the construction of the hotel. Nevertheless, Hotelco must be aware that this includes a risk because the appeal from the institutions has yet to be decided upon and therefore the construction permit is not definite yet.” “The case is therefore not over yet”, says Yarzagaray.

[Andrea J.]

from the AMIGOE
NGO’s in Ritz-Carlton case: ‘Minister Sevinger shouldn’t have granted construction permit’
4 Okt, 2010, 08:11 (GMT -04:00)

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ORANJESTAD — Based on the Building and Housing Regulation, the government shouldn’t have granted the construction permit last May for the construction of the five-star Ritz-Carlton hotel. That appears from a reaction of the ecology organizations who instituted a court-case, in an interview of Infrastructure Minister Benny Sevinger (AVP) in this newspaper.

In that interview, published by the Amigoe on September 23rd, the Minister states that the NGO’s should have taken action sooner in order to prevent the hotel at Fisherman’s Huts. The Minister also stands by the viewpoint that it is not the current government, but the previous MEP-government who is responsible for the arrival of the hotel. However, the ecology organizations most certainly blame the current AVP-government for not having done sufficient to prevent the construction. That appears from a detailed written response to this newspaper. In the latter, they specifically state that Minister Sevinger should not have granted the construction permit on May 20th according to the statutory legislation. Based on article 24 of the Building and Housing Regulation, one may namely not grant any construction permit if the conditions of the granted ground lease have not been complied with. The Minister himself confirmed in public several times that one had not complied with the long lease conditions.

Possible criminal offence
According to the ecology organizations, from the interview in this newspaper the Minister was also aware that the previous government had relaxed the conditions. In particular, this regards the environment affect report (MER) that was not drawn up, and the financial conditions. As regards the latter, the NGO’s state there is ‘a possible question of a criminal offence’. After all, in the Letter of Intent in 2008 it was agreed between the previous government and the developers that the latter had to pay an ‘unconditional and irrevocable’ performance bond of 25 million dollars. However, when the long lease deed was executed before the notary-public on October 29th (one day before the installation of the new government) that amount was reduced to 5 million dollars without reason given. This, while the deed itself even refers to the conditions agreed upon in the Letter of Intent of 2008. In addition, it appears from the long lease deed that in March last year, the former minister of Infrastructure, Marisol Lopez-Tromp also reduced the in the Letter of Intent agreed upon investment amount from 125 million dollars to 51 million dollars. This occurred once again without explanation. According to the ecology organizations, that is incomprehensible because the number of hotel rooms to be built has remained the same: “Therefore, the developer wants all the frills without the expense, with regard to an area measuring 4.5 hectare.”
For that matter, from the granted construction permit of May 20th last, the government still departs from the fact that the building value of the hotel regards 173.6 million florins, or that the construction of the hotel costs 99 million dollars.

Claim of millions
Based on aforementioned irregularities the ecology organizations find that one should therefore ‘very critically’ view the argumentation of the current government not to take any action themselves.
The government indicated they would not oppose a construction permit because the developer could institute a court case and a claim of millions. However, according to the ecology organizations, the Aruban government had been summoned several times in the past because they supposedly had committed default and the developer had demanded an insurance claim.
That was for example in the Trias-case but in this particular case the Supreme Court eventually rejected the claim. Moreover, the Supreme Court drew up a list of all ‘faulty projects’ that had ended in a similar manner on Aruba and the Antilles in the past, according to the NGO’s.
The ecology organizations Aruba Marine Mammal Foundation, Aruba Birdlife Conservation and Turtugaruba currently have an administrative legal case pending to halt the construction of the Ritz-Carlton hote