No order given for Old Eye Ward to be returned to previous ruins

By Emmanuel Joseph

Rehabilitation work has ground to a halt on the Old Eye Ward at Carlisle Bay, Lower Bay Street, The City where developer Allan Kinch has been ordered to take certain steps “to restore the land to its condition before the development took place”.

But Director of Planning and Development Trevor Leach whose department issued the Enforcement Notice and Stop Order against the owner of the property on which the building sits, said Kinch was not instructed to return the structure to its original ruins.

He dismissed reports in other sections of the media that his department had ordered Kinch’s company, Savoy Development (Barbados) Inc. to return the edifice that was bought from the Barbados Tourism Investment Inc. (BTII) in 2019 to its previous dilapidated condition.

“At no time has the developer been ordered to return the building to its original state of ruin. Indeed, paragraph 5 of the Enforcement Notice has simply ordered the developer to stop the unauthorised development and submit an application to the Director of Planning and Development,” he contended in a statement issued on Tuesday.

“The facts are that the developer ought to know that no development can be done on a Listed Building without permission from the Planning and Development Department…. Further, the developer knows the process of applying for retention given this has been used by the developer on the adjacent location where again the lot was developed without permission. Once again, an Enforcement and Stop Notice was served and the developer then applied for retention.”

The Enforcement Notice and Stop Order, dated July 20, 2023, was served on Kinch charging that work was carried out on the Listed building within the last four years without planning permission.

In it, the businessman was ordered to immediately discontinue the “unauthorised building, engineering or other operations on the land that materially affect the character, appearance and setting of the listed building”.

Kinch is also mandated to submit an application “to ensure both the proper assessment of the unauthorised development completed to date and any further works are appropriate and sympathetic to the character, appearance and setting of the listed building”.

Leach said the public should be aware that once a Stop Notice is issued, no further development should take place until that application is then determined.
“Accordingly, the notion that anyone has been asked to return a building to a derelict state is a complete untruth. Development of listed buildings is monitored to ensure that the refurbishment takes into account those matters that are necessary to preserve the integrity of the characteristics that led to it being listed,” he asserted.

When contacted, Kinch, owner of Savvy on the Bay food establishment which is on the same lands purchased four years ago, declined to comment, stating that he was waiting on his attorney to clear up certain misinformation in the public domain.
However, Sarah Taylor, Kinch’s girlfriend who signed the notice when it was served, admitted that while it did not say the development should be returned to the original state of ruin, “to restore the land to its condition before the development took place” seemed to mean just that.

Taylor also queried why Kinch was being required to submit an application for planning permission when he had already done so.

“I was lost as to why the Planning Department served the notice without determining the application that was submitted in 2020 and updated two weeks prior to the notice being served. I was also lost as to why they asked for an application to be submitted in the notice when they had already been submitted,” she told Barbados TODAY.
She said that for some time now, “our lives have been wrought with stress over this investment”.

“We have also endured destruction of property on more than one occasion and downright bullying,” Taylor charged.

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb