Politics Prevents Nassau Redevelopment

by Larry Smith

“Can’t you see the sun setting fast? And just like they say nothing good ever lasts. Go on now and say your goodbye, to our town, to our town. Can’t you see the sun setting down, on our town, our town. Goodnight.” - Iris Dement

On September 4, 2001 a looneytune peanut seller named Gardiner walked into the downtown straw market and struck a match, putting hundreds of vendors and tourism personnel out of work and almost burning down Bay Street itself.

The event was a ”national disaster”, and officials scrambled to make good. Within months they were envisioning a state-of-the-art complex that would help to transform the downtown waterfront. A design competition was launched with much fanfare, and rebuilding was set to begin in 2003.

By that time the unfortunate arsonist had progressed through our molasses-like court system to begin a 12-year jail term, and the Ministry of Tourism had acquired posh new offices at a cost of more than $4 million.

But even now – more than four years after the fire – the straw market remains a vacant lot in the heart of the city, just a stone’s throw from the cruise port, with vendors still working beneath a makeshift tent.

In a masterpiece of doubletalk, Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe declared that “the straw market and the vendors are invaluable to our number one industry. We want the highest level for these people, who are in fact Bahamians we should always admire.”

A new straw market is said to be part of a proposed $300 million redevelopment of the city of Nassau. But – despite tons of talk and huge investments of time, effort and money by a multitude of organisations, volunteers and consultants over many years – this crucial initiative has stalled, just as it seemed within our grasp.

The project has a long and convoluted history, beginning in the late 1980s when downtown doyen Norman Solomon and others invited the legendary Rouse Corporation to help spur the regeneration of the city of Nassau. They did not have enough political capital at the time to even get to first base.

But in 1992 the new FNM government commissioned a study of five public waterfront sites on the island’s north shore – from Goodman’s Bay to Montagu. According to architects Jackson Burnside and Pat Rahming: “these five sites could act as a catalyst (for) the redevelopment of the city of Nassau.”

And some recommendations were actually implemented. They included the Goodman’s Bay renovation, improvements at Potter’s Cay, and landscaping of the Eastern foreshore.

Three years later, the Nassau Tourism Development Board was formed. This was an evolution of the old Duty-free Promotion Board – a group of retailers who lobbied the government to enact duty-free legislation to make the country more competitive.

At about this time, the Ministry of Works was mulling a land use plan for the entire island, and Canadian consultants produced a report on infrastructural choices and costs. But the idea was eventually shelved, so most of those choices and costs remain today – only amplified by the passage of time (see ‘Development Issues for New Providence’ at www.bahamapundit.com).

In the late 1990s. the NTDB found that almost half of all hotel visitors never even went downtown and didn’t spend any money in our shops: "Historic Nassau is a tremendous resource that needs to be managed and developed if we are to fully realise its economic potential," Executive Director Frank Comito said at the time.

So Jackson Burnside was commissioned to produce a new study, to lay a foundation for the city’s revitalisation. The goal was “to prevent the loss of the essential characteristics, spirit and identity of Nassau (and) to create an attractive urban environment.” According to Comito, “Many aspects of this study are works now in progress. It is a reference for the entire planning process.”

In early 2002, the NTDB and the Ministry of Tourism launched a downtown improvement programme as a way to build on Burnside’s ‘Historic Nassau’ recommendations. Efforts were made to control street crime and upgrade Bay Street’s general appearance, cleanliness and user friendliness.

Shortly afterward, the government pledged to designate special districts throughout the country to aid in the restoration of historic buildings and neighbourhoods. Tax exemptions are in fact available for this (although few take advantage of them), but legislation to formalise the historic districts has never been passed.

To generate interest in restoration, a series of workshops on heritage tourism was held in 2002. One of the speakers was the executive director of the Historic Charleston Foundation. And that South Carolina city earns billions of dollars a year from people eager to visit its well-preserved neighbourhoods. Charleston’s success is often cited as a model for Nassau.

After the May 2002 general election, the new PLP government formed the Nassau Economic Development Commission. Led by two old adversaries - George Mackey and Norman Solomon - it bills itself as a public/private partnership with some two dozen members. Most of the private sector representatives are drawn from the NTDB.

Co-chairman George Mackey described Nassau’s condition as so grave it required “immediate remedial attention”. And the commission spent the next two years documenting the "most urgent need for a master plan to...transform Bay Street and the city of Nassau,” in the words of Prime Minister Perry
Christie.

Last year the government hired an international planning firm, EDAW, to draft such a plan. Presented to Cabinet a few weeks ago, it identifies a range of “aggressive projects” with costs split by the public and private sectors. The plan outlines seven districts along the waterfront from Arawak Cay to Montagu, each “building upon a unique focal point and character of the area.”

For instance, the Garden District surrounding the National Art Museum will be a “quaint walkable area”. The Heart of Nassau from George to East Streets serves as “the formal entrance to the capital”, featuring a new parliament complex. And the Living Waterfront from Elizabeth Street to the Eastern Parade will support a community of restaurants, shops, apartments and cultural attractions.

“The reclamation of this valuable waterfront area is essential for creating a downtown Nassau that is a liveable place for residents and an attractive destination for tourists,” the EDAW plan says. And shippers appear to have reluctantly agreed to move their unsightly container terminals to a new port slated to be built on Nassau’s southwest coast.

A 300-foot-wide channel will be carved out between the BEC power station and Commonwealth Brewery leading to inland docking facilities dredged to a depth of 20 or 30 feet. Excavation on the 200-acre site is expected to begin before next summer, and will be the most visible evidence that something is finally happening if it ever gets underway.

Another top priority is the creation of a management authority for the city. The downtown improvement programme made incremental changes over the years, but there is no legislative back up for what needs to be done on a larger scale, and no requirement that all businesses contribute to the overall effort. Experts say voluntary committees just won’t cut it any more.

Although the government is said to agree conceptually with this approach, many sense that a political sticking point has been reached. And it will likely take many more months to hammer out a consensus on powers for a city authority – to levy assessments, enforce building codes, offer incentives and re-route traffic, for example.

Meanwhile, the government’s on-the-ground record with the downtown straw market does not inspire confidence.

Tribune columnist Andrew Allen has long argued for the adoption of municipal government because central governments are incapable of making good decisions for local communities: “Unlike a mayor or a city manager, a central government's main concern is pitching all of their initiatives to the broader political electorate.”

And, he says, “Like all of its predecessors, the PLP has absolutely no plan for transferring any real power and responsibility for the overall management of the city away from itself. That, presumably, would involve too much political risk. It is, however, the only real hope of achieving a permanent solution to the problems of the city, by insulating its management from national party politics. That makes it a bullet worth biting.”

Guardian columnist Nicolette Bethel goes even further, and argues for a Bahamian federation to give every island greater autonomy: “When a country has ‘local government’ in its outlying territories, but no municipal governments to govern the two-thirds of the population that lives in the capital, the concept is laughable,” she wrote recently.

“Central government has stultified the growth of the entire country. Nassau can barely rule itself, let alone the entire archipelago. If the nation is to continue to grow and prosper, a true devolution of power from the centre must begin.”

In the United States, legislation empowers municipalities to establish so-called business improvement districts that can levy assessments to fund promotion, management, maintenance and development. Most hire full-time managers under the control of a voluntary board of directors.

But Prime Minister Christie said last year that he wanted to transform the Hotel Corporation (led by Baltron Bethel and George Smith) into a Tourism Development Corporation that would no doubt exert political control over the whole redevelopment process – assuming it ever gets off the ground in the first place.

Hundreds of stakeholders from both the public and private sectors have worked for years helping to stimulate ideas and plan the best options for the city’s future. It is a project that will benefit the entire island, and all the experts agree that doing nothing will lead only to crisis and decline.

But politics trumps everything in this one-horse town - even our own survival as a functioning community. None of the leaders we contacted who are involved in the redevelopment planning would comment for fear of committing some terrible political indiscretion. Why? Is it a question of national security?

It is difficult to see how any rational approach, involving so much money and effort, can succeed in such an insidious environment.