by Larry Smith
"Would you tell me which way I ought to go from here?" asked Alice.
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get," said the Cat.
"I really don't care where" replied Alice.
"Then it doesn't much matter which way you go," said the Cat.
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Over the holidays I drove into Marsh Harbour from Treasure Cay, and was confronted by an obnoxious sight - acres of rusting machinery and thousands of derelict vehicles distributed along both sides of the Great Abaco Highway.
This was not casual littering. For the most part, the dumps are scrap metal and auto parts businesses - it's called 'urban sprawl'.
Abaco probably represents the best the Bahamas has to offer these days. A large island with significant natural assets, fresh water reserves, successful farming and fishing traditions, a thriving second home and yachting market and a pool of relatively cheap (mostly Haitian) labour. As a result, it has achieved a certain critical mass.
But with a total population of about 15,000 Abaco has reached a crossroads. It is at the point where it has to deal with all the difficult quality-of-life choices that confront a rapidly developing society.
Explosive Growth
According to Abaconian publisher Dave Ralph (who has lived on the island for half a century), Abaco's explosive growth has created a problem: "Our diverse boards, committees and councils are generally looking at satisfying immediate issues and not considering the effect as the area continues to grow," he wrote recently. "Many issues which relate to growth are not rigidly defined and must be resolved by common sense and a view to present and future community values. This is not an easy task."
No kidding. When I was a youngster we often remarked that Marsh Harbour, which was originally laid out in 1784 by British officials relocating loyalists following American independence, was the ugliest settlement in the country. Well, it still is - and getting uglier and more chaotic by the day.
That's because Marsh Harbour is mostly urban sprawl - strip shopping centers, warehouses, storage yards, and automobile-dominated streets with no particular plan. Only a handful of residences can be found and the few remaining historic buildings are in disrepair. Clearly, the township has adopted the growth patterns of Nassau, although its smaller scale currently masks this fact.
What Marsh Harbour lacks is a sense of place - the blended natural, physical and cultural identity that is most clearly represented by historic Bahamian communities like Hope Town on Elbow Cay and Dunmore Town on Harbour Island.
A Sense of Place
It's difficult to define that term 'place' without getting all googly-eyed, but some have tried to explain it by saying: "You can't know who you are until you know where you are". Sense of place involves the human experience in a landscape. It is place which gives us our identity. Place represents 'we tings'.
But while it may be difficult to define, it is relatively easy to say what it isn't - if you know what I mean. For example, strip malls have little sense of place because they all look alike and people don't want to spend any time in them or write anything about them. Whereas an area that has a strong sense of place projects an identity and character that is valued by residents and recognized immediately by visitors.
And then there is the Mud, an illegal Haitian shantytown right in the middle of Marsh Harbour. This community of a few thousand - and other informal settlements nearby - lacks proper waste disposal, water and electrical distribution is illegal and unsafe, and buildings are not built to code so they are prone to fires and hurricane destruction.
In fact, it was the growth of informal settlements like the Mud that gave rise to modern urban planning in the first place. Planning was a response to Victorian-era industrialisation, which produced slums, deadly epidemics, and a generally unpleasant environment until conditions became intolerable. For example, this account from the BBC website could easily apply to the Mud today:
"In 1854, the commissioners appointed to enquire into the cholera outbreak in Newcastle-upon-Tyne found that about 50 per cent of families had only a single room. Most houses did not have an independent water supply or privy, and what was shared was often the responsibility of no one...The warren of streets posed a threat to public order."
Development Pressures
Although the historic communities on Abaco's outlying cays have faced - and to an extent successfully absorbed - enormous development pressure in recent years (Hope Town is so full of affluent partygoers that it is known as 'Hollywood'), the main island of Abaco has remained largely untouched - although it has been logged twice by American lumber companies.
But that picture is changing. A relatively continuous belt of shoreline development is being projected all the way from Hole-in-the-Wall to Casuarina Point and unless checked, conventional strip development is likely to sprawl along the entire highway. And - like the drive into Marsh Harbour from Treasure Cay - it will surely not be a savoury sight.
The Abaco Club at Winding Bay opened in 2005 and other investors are eyeing similar resort developments in the relatively pristine south, where the Abaco National Park is located. One of those is Schooner Bay - about 26 miles south of Marsh Harbour.
Schooner Bay is the pet project of legendary developer Orjan Lindroth, whose father was Axel Wenner-Gren's business manager in the Bahamas. The elder Lindroth was responsible for developing the Andros Lighthouse Club and Andros Yacht Club for Wenner-Gren, as well as Paradise Beach and the Ocean Club for Huntington Hartford.
After the younger Lindroth graduated from the London School of Economics, he too became a top Bahamas-based developer, closely linked to the New Providence Development Company founded by Canadian E P Taylor, the man who created Lyford Cay.
A Model for the Region
A few years ago Lindroth hired famed Miami architectural firm, Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ), to master plan Schooner Bay as an open Bahamian village based on the principles of the 'new urbanism.
New urban planning calls for walkability and connectivity, mixed-use neighbourhoods with lively town centres, and eco-friendly technologies that support a light development footprint. Schooner Bay is being crafted along these lines as a settlement model for the entire region, Lindroth says.
The project's land use plan retains 60 per cent of the 220-acre site as protected green space (no crown land is involved). And building design will be based entirely on tried and true Bahamian vernacular architecture. The settlement will feature a harbor, a mixed-use village centre, a school, various small resort amenities and a broad range of housing types. it seeks to be a genuine new town.
Schooner Bay's design team recently published a 298-page book (A Living Tradition - Architecture of the Bahamas), that outlines many of the principles that will be applied. Bahamian architect, Jackson Burnside, told Tough Call that "these principles document the common sense of the ancestral legacy of Bahamian communities and are, therefore, appropriate lessons to guide our communities going forward."
It turns out that DPZ is a world leader in neo-traditional community design. One of its early projects was Seaside, on Florida's gulf coast, which was hailed as the first authentic new town to be built successfully in the United States in over 50 years. In 1989, Time Magazine selected Seaside as one of the 10 "Best of the Decade" achievements in the field of design.
The firm also developed the SmartCode (http://smartcodecentral.com/), which folds zoning, subdivision regulations, urban design, public works standards and basic architectural controls into one compact open source document whose goal is to discourage sprawl, keep towns compact and retain as much open space as possible.
Implications for Abaco
Lindroth's association with DPZ had wider implications for Abaco's future. Among those who took part in a planning workshop for the Schooner Bay project in 2006 was a professor from Michigan's Andrews University named Andrew von Maur. Each year the Urban Design Studio at the university undertakes a field project to help real communities address planning issues.
"I approached Lindroth in part because I had an interest in tackling the planning problems of the Mud," von Maur told Tough Call. "I had recently been inspired by Jaime Correa of Coral Gables to help advance work in shantytowns. Orjan suggested that the Abaco community could benefit from a much larger planning scope."
The result was a 10-day town and regional planning workshop held on Abaco last September (www.abacoplanning.org). The Andrews team brought together key stakeholders - government officials, landowners, concerned citizens, activist groups, and the business community - to collaborate on a vision and a set of guiding principles for the future development of Marsh Harbour and South Abaco.
"Schooner Bay gave some financial support for travel, but left us a free hand in developing the proposals. We had the official sanction of (the Ministry of the Environment), but Andrews University conducted the charrette and developed the entire set of proposals as a free, independent academic institution, in collaboration with the participating public, professional consultants and local officials."
The document they produced (A Proposal to Restore a Sustainable Settlement Tradition on Abaco) includes specific planning guidelines and proposals for Marsh Harbour, the Mud, Sandy Point and the South Abaco region as a whole. Also included are illustrations, codes and ordinances which can be adopted by local authorities to advance the proposals. It is a stunning, if idealistic, piece of work.
A Useful Initiative
According to environmental consultant Keith Bishop, who has played a large role in the Schooner Bay development, the Andrews University document is "a useful planning initiative that can and should be duplicated over our entire country. Hopefully we will learn from these principles before our kids are forced to live in urban sprawl. That is, if there is anything left to sprawl on."
The proposal seeks to avoid strip development along the Great Abaco Highway corridor and promote the long-term sustainability of the South Abaco region. Conventional automobile-dominated development patterns are discouraged in favour of mixed-use bahamian settlement types with a variety of transportation options.
"Conventional resort development typically features large hotels, a closed environment, golf courses, and a utility infrastructure that demands high water use and distant power transmission," the proposal says. "This model typically relies on a cheap labor force, high numbers of visitors, and intense access to amenities such as beaches, marinas and nearby transportation (airports).
"When systems fail over time, projects can become difficult to maintain because the Bahamas does not provide a sophisticated maintenance industry to sustain such a scale of development. This can mean further reliance on imported labor or the gradual transformation of the project into an obsolete and unmanageable relic. (Such) projects are sometimes abandoned with devastating affects on the local job market and economy (eg: the Four Seasons Resort on Exuma) and irrevocable harm to natural ecosystems."
The Andrews proposal seeks to define which communities should be built in what sectors of the island based on the best Bahamian settlement traditions, improved for the 21st century. Special requirements such as green corridors for wildlife are also stipulated, while conventional resort development is discouraged.
Transportation options include an improved bus service linking the entire island, an expanded airstrip near Sandy Point, new and enhanced ferry ports at both Sandy Point and Marsh Harbour, and bike path networks.
The proposals for Marsh Harbour call for channeling growth into a network of compact mixed-use centres with interconnected streets, each comprising a walkable neighborhood. Ferry docks would be enhanced with appropriate commercial development and a public park and market would be provided.
Tackling the Mud
But the most controversial suggestions focus on the Haitian shantytown known as the Mud - an amazing concentration of poverty and decay, built on spoil dredged from the harbour, that all agree is a major disincentive to investment in the island's capital. The planning challenges it creates are complicated by difficult issues of political status, ownership and social justice.
The Andrews document argues that a pathway to legal land ownership (through lease to purchase contracts) must be provided for the Haitian community. The proposals - which include proper waste treatment, water and electrical services, vegetable gardens, better roads and housing, and public parks - are intended to show how conditions in the Mud might improve if we allowed such a transition to take place.
"Building densities in the Mud are 12 per acre, about the same as the densest historic settlements in the Bahamas (Dunmore Town, New Plymouth and Hope Town).," the proposal says. "The true challenges of the Mud do not lie in its building density, but rather in its poor safety standards and overcrowded dwellings."
Many consider the growing Haitian settlements attached to Marsh Harbour as time bombs waiting to explode, but so far it has been easier to avoid the complex and politically sensitive issues involved. The Andrews document expresses the hope that Marsh Harbour can become a sustainable community that is in keeping with the best of Bahamian settlement traditions.
It should be noted that the most successful Bahamian destinations invariably feature Bahamian vernacular architecture of high quality. These places include Hope Town, Dunmore Town, New Plymouth and Spanish Wells. In this sense, Bahamian settlement patterns ought to be regarded by everyone as a worthy investment..
"The biggest planning challenge," according to Nassau architect Mike Alexiou, "is how to grow and not lose the things we love. Our job as custodians of the Bahamian built environment is to provide an antidote for one-size-fits-all development."
The alternative is, as Abaco resident John Hedden put it recently, to devalue ourselves: "Our history is thrown away. Our culture is discarded. Our architecture is allowed to rot. Our intellect is on a flight to Miami. Our resourcefulness is all about scheming to bring it in cost-free."
Nassau and Briland could definitely use one of these studies as well. Our leaders need to understand that they must begin to have a vision for the Bahamas in the 21st century. They must move from a government strategy of simply 'fixing pot holes' and start thinking about what kind of high tech 'road' we will need moving forward as a nation. We must move from REACTION to planned and concerted ACTION! Until this transition occurs, we are doomed to suffer more of the same. WAKE UP BAHAMAS!
Posted by: Erasmus Folly | January 12, 2009 at 07:25 PM
Your observations on Abaco got it right.
I think Andrews University is way off base on their vision for The Mud.
1) The land is low and prone to flooding in hurricanes - four feet of salt water in one of the recent ones. Most of a person's possessions are in the first four feet. Commercial interests would fill the land to acceptable heights but I don't think these people have the funds or insight to do this.
2) They are squatters on government land. Can government afford to set a precedent that if you persevere in your squatting, you will win? Do Bahamians have this right?
3) Equating the density there to Hope Town is interesting but not a valid reason to approve of the practice.
4) Allowing them to eventually acquire the land they are on does not improve their squalour. They are living much better than they were accustomed to in Haiti. It is not likely that ownership of the land they are on will cause them to rebuild their houses to code.
5) Allowing them to continue to exist under ghetto-like conditions allows new illegal immigrants safe haven as the area is not policed and not under public scrutiny. The police and others do go in there but there is no effort made to monitor whether the population is static or increasing.
6) Andrews U had some cute solutions, one being landscaped drainage ditches leading to the harbour. All I could visualize was a ditch full of cans, bottles, refrigerators, garbage and other debris. I think it will require education and enforcement of current laws before they change their living habits. Even then it will be as a result of moving out of the Mud and getting re-established in Spring City or other Bahamian areas.
7) I think The Mud's eventual future lies in commercial or public uses. Commercial ventures would have the capital and motivation to raise the land to acceptable heights to avoid persistent flooding. Public use might include sports fields or a public park. These can be on low land as occasional flooding is generally harmless.
8) Bahamians must jump through hoops and dance on one leg to get connected to BEC power. The Haitians cannot be given electricity as they cannot produce the necessary documents.
Relaxing the rules, any of them, for Mud residents would be a political nightmare, whether for electricity, water. shop licenses, building code, septic tanks and drain fields, etc. The Mud and Pigeon Peas are full of shops, nightclubs, bars, restaurants and the like. These are all to their standards, not ours - big difference. One of my suggestions was to relax the rules slightly on peddler's licenses in an attempt to bring these businesses somewhat into the light of day as a first move to get the area legitimate. Nothing happened; maybe it was a bad idea.
It was an interesting study, with many elements that are worth considering or implementing, but others that are not feasible - in my view.
Posted by: Dave Ralph | January 13, 2009 at 08:24 AM
Abaco has four of these Haitian ghettos, The Mud, Pigeon Peas, Sand Banks outside Treasure Cay and the un-named farm settlement in the Norman's Castle farm area.
These are all growing, expanding unchecked. A fifth is developing in the forest just off the Treasure Cay highway on the road leading to the farm area.
Posted by: Dave Ralph | January 13, 2009 at 08:26 AM
How about a follow up piece on how the Bahamas Government has raped and pillaged this Island.
In the past 16 years Abaco has contributed more than $800 million to the public treasury. What have we received back? Less than 10%. Most of this on the watch of the Prime Minister from Abaco.
This thing you call local government is a joke. Abaco has not been given the money or the power to make decisions for it self. Period. Real local government collects money at the local level and uses those funds to make things happen. With real local government you can actually make decisions at the local level, implement them and pay for them.
You want to talk about the Mud and how ugly Marsh Harbour is. That's old news. We live here. How about you talk about why things are the way they are. NOTHING happens without money and power.
We have had the same shack for an airport for more than 30 years. The new runway sits unused for a year now and you want to talk about town planning. Get real man. Wake up.
People in Abaco are so used to having to raise money for things that government should supply that we don't think about it any more. Any thing of beauty you see in Marsh Harbour is donated. Three quarters of all the money and volunteer work on the keys are provided by the second home owner because they love the Bahamas. Thank God for them.
The Bahams government does nothing for this island. We are the black sheep. While you might be right that Marsh Harbour is the ugliest city in the country we still are not the sewer that Nassau is.
Why don't you do this community a service and write something that can make a difference. Why don't you ask the prime minister some tough questions.
Posted by: Andrew Curry | January 13, 2009 at 10:19 AM
The mud is a huge problem. Who is going to tell them they have to move? Abaco has a lot of public land. Who is going to pay for the low cost housing? This is problem number one of many.
Posted by: Andrew Curry | January 13, 2009 at 07:27 PM
"Real local government collects money at the local level and uses those funds to make things happen."
Bing, bing, bing!
The other good thing this would bring about is a training ground...
So, how do we get this done?
drew
Posted by: drew Roberts | January 13, 2009 at 10:42 PM
Right on the money!
I have a lot of faith in Abaco and I think it is our “best bet” island in the Bahamas (that is why I own property there) but I feel the same way – dismayed that there is no planning for Marsh Hr. and the Abaco Highway will end up looking like Prince Charles drive if we/they are not careful.
If there is any silver lining to this recession it will be that we take another look at future developments in the Bahamas – without doubt, - the best idea is Schooner Bay...we need to get that up and running as a successful model asap, and scrap plans for developments like Rum Cay, Ritz Carlton, Royal island etc...
Keep it up!!
Posted by: Ken Chaplin | January 14, 2009 at 08:10 AM
This was an extraordinary piece. An education on one of the areas of the Bahamas with a real history.
Posted by: Joseph Gibson | January 14, 2009 at 05:16 PM
Andrew hits the nail on the head. Effective local government is the key. I am glad to see others picking up the torch.
Posted by: Bob Knaus | January 14, 2009 at 07:23 PM
Thank you for analyzing the issues and bringing them to the public forum, which is seriously needed to encourage positive change.
I am also going to re-read Alice-in-Wonderland!
Posted by: Orjan Lindroth | January 15, 2009 at 08:37 AM
Local govt would be the way until we realize it will just bring the pillaging of the treasury down to the local level. Besides it would mean the capital doing with less...
Ain't no way that will happen.
Look at the shining examples in the capital that we have to follow when it comes to ethics.
we need to get to the point that we castigate the crooks among us who have "mini doc" mentalities and educate the sheep that vote for them.
Posted by: C.Lowe | January 18, 2009 at 06:18 PM
I was born in Lake City, Abaco, Bahamas in 11/27/1966. I am only 213.28 miles away in North Miami, Florida. Based on my research and love for my place of birth. I am planning to produce a movie on Abaco and helping the local officials to bring $1 billion dollars for development to Abaco. As the son of a poor Haitian widow the 5 Haitian Ghettos must be protected and afforded legal status.
Posted by: Delawrence Charles Blue | February 06, 2009 at 05:16 AM