---

The following is text of an interview with Tom Vesey, chairman of the Bermuda Overdevelopment Group for Unlimited Sprawl (BOGUS). The organization is campaigning to have Planning restrictions removed from the City of Hamilton.

A lot of developers in Hamilton are annoyed at the Planning Department, who won't let them build anything higher than the Cathedral.

The problem is not with Planning, but with the Cathedral. They need to build it higher.

I tried to knock some sense into that church, but the idiots wouldn't listen. No wonder organized religion isn't popular like it used to be - the whole enterprise is clinging to the past. It's ignoring its client base.

I approached them last year about buying the Cathedral. Not necessarily the whole Anglican Church of Bermuda, but enough of a stake to give me a say in its decisions.

And a share in the profits when things started to take off, which they would.

I even promised not to change the name of the church, for at least five years.

I'm talking about the Anglican Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity, of course.

That's its real name. But you notice I just needed to use that one word - "cathedral" - and you knew exactly what I meant. That's brand recognition, and it coulda been leveraged into some really significant stuff.

But no, they wouldn't listen.

Here's the thing. You look around Hamilton, and everybody's building bigger, and building higher. They can't build out - the ocean's in the way - but the sky's the limit when you start building up.

Except the sky ISN'T the limit.

The Cathedral is the limit. It's 143 feet high, and Planning won't let you build anything that blocks the so-called "view corridor".

Why they think people want to hang around all day staring up a "view corridor" at an old gray building - well, I don't know the answer to that. But everybody's pushing at the envelope, seeing what they can squeeze through Planning.

Planning sometimes gives a little, but not much.

What they've done is put a limit on how much money a developer can make off a piece of property in Hamilton, and the developers have just stood there and taken it.

What could they do? But what if you raised the Cathedral?

I mean, the higher you built the Cathedral, the higher everybody else could build. It would cost a lot of money to jack the building up, or to take it apart and rebuild it, or even just to raise the Cathedral tower up a couple of hundred feet.

But do you have any idea how much these developers would pay the Cathedral to do it?

The technology is there, and the money is there. All you need is the church to agree and the developers and the church would be making a hell of a lot of money.

The Cathedral would have a lot of new penthouse space, which they could use for bells or whatever they put in their towers.

Or better yet they could lease it out to international business. Nobody would have a better view: Planning restrictions would guarantee it. They'd get the highest rents per square foot of any place in all of Hamilton.

But when I was negotiating with them, their executives had some pretty backwards notions.

They kept going on about the "good of the community" and "the dangers of over-development". What if the shadow of our building darkens our neighbours', or blocks any hope of a view of the water or even the sky? This is the stuff they were going on about.

But it's really the other guys' fault when you think about it: If only they had the vision to build bigger and higher themselves, if they only moved quicker than everybody else, they wouldn't need to complain.

They only have themselves to blame.

Not everybody can have a view; that's unrealistic. It is only right that the highest executives at the top of the highest buildings should get the view.

A lot of people are nervous about change. But as I told the guys from the cathedral, it's all in the marketing. Building up is building towards heaven - that would have been our campaign. "Nearer My God To Thee!" That woulda been our slogan.

But those church guys, they couldn't see an opportunity if it stood up and smacked them in the face.

One day soon, the developers are going to bust through that ceiling, cathedral or no cathedral. The pressure's too great.

Then the Cathedral won't act all holier than thou. They'll look out from their puny little tower, and the only view they'll see is office buildings all around them. They'll feel like that little old church in the valley.

Then they'll wish they'd sold out, like everyone else. But it'll be too late. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.[[In-content Ad]]

---