---

Bermuda belongs to its citizens, but it's remarkable how little say we have in our island's future, or even how it's run today.

Our control - in as much as we have control at all - is indirect. We elect a Government (indirectly, for we really only elect our single local member of parliament). And then that Government gets on with making decisions for us.

It is sometimes said that our parliamentary system is an elected dictatorship - we vote, and than the winner of the election gets to rule by decree until the next election.

Which makes it all the more important for us to cling to whatever rights and privileges are left for the overwhelming majority of us who are not sitting in the Cabinet Room.

I find it hard to see how a rapid influx of big new hotel buildings will do anything but harm for the Bermudian people and our island's landscape. The whole concept of nine-storey hotel towers on the South Shore appals me.

But it doesn't appal me nearly as much as the whole concept of all these things happening without basic input from the people of Bermuda, and without planning and zoning regulations and procedures being followed.

The 'Special Development Orders' that are being used so often lately allow a developer - backed with the signature of a Cabinet Minister - to avoid these planning restrictions and procedures.

Those controls are there for good reason.

First, they are meant to prevent people with loads of money doing whatever they want to our island. Lack of planning regulations didn't matter so much in the old days, when nobody had much money to build with, but now our island is overcrowded and there are plenty of people with enough money to buy and sell us all. We cannot survive without careful and detailed planning.

Special Development Orders undermine this control. Secondly, planning system is meant to, well, allow us to plan. It's a painfully difficult and complicated job to figure out, as fairly as possible, where to allow development (and how much development to allow) and where to preserve open space.

It needs to be done with one eye on the big picture - how everything fits into Bermuda as whole - with everything from traffic to schools and garbage collection taken into account, and another eye on the long-term future.

The 'big picture' means thinking about the scale and timing of building taking place across the island, and attempting to ensure that the building industry does not become overheated. A wealthy hotel developer may be prepared to pay inflated construction costs, but this inflation means higher costs for all other building in Bermuda too. It raises the cost of everything from basic home repairs to building the 'low cost' housing that Bermuda needs so badly.

All this is undermined by Special Development Orders, which by their very nature make individual exceptions that often have huge and long-lasting consequences. And they almost inevitably violate the letter and spirit of carefully considered long-term planning objectives.

Thirdly, planning controls are meant to ensure fairness: Every would-be developer must face the same restrictions and undergo the same scrutiny, have their proposals examined by experts at the Planning Department, and vetted by the citizens who sit on the Planning Board.

Special Development Orders circumvent this as well. So they leave disgruntled citizens behind them - people who believe they should have been given the same opportunities, or that their objections were completely unheard. People, in short, who believe their country is not being run fairly and openly.

Finally, the planning process provides a chance for citizens to examine and question a proposed project. Scrutiny doesn't just mean where every detail of the proposed project is inspected, second-guessed, and open to criticism from all and sundry - though that certainly ought to be part of routine democratic process in Bermuda.

It also means that people proposing projects - especially big ones likely to have a very large impact - are compelled to publicly explain what they are trying to do, and justify anything that is at odds with normal zoning.

Special Development Orders undermine this important process as well.

It is true that Government Ministers sometimes do, in fact, know better than the citizens. They need to explain and convince people - at least, most people - that their point of view is correct.

Unjustified

There may be occasions when the regular planning process needs to be shoved aside with a special order from a Cabinet Minister. But it's hard to see how anything short of a genuine national crisis would justify it.

None of the cases in which Special Development Orders have been granted, or asked for, in recent months comes anywhere near meeting that standard.

Until such a case comes up, developers and the Government should follow the procedures for seeking planning approval.

It will often be frustrating and time-consuming, and it will sometimes lead to the rejection of ideas they are convinced are good for Bermuda as well as themselves. But this is not their country - not theirs alone. It belongs to all of us, and all of us need to take part in the process.[[In-content Ad]]

---