The head of the Development Control Authority (DCA) has said that Old Road community leader Jameson “Kublai” Mannix jumped the gun when he asked for a stop order to be placed on work on the Callaloo Cay project.
According to Chief Town & Country Planner Frederick Southwell the developer of the US $200 million hotel and villa project, Al Caribi Antigua Development Limited, has not received approval for actual construction.
“I heard them saying that the DCA had given the project a ‘green light’. We have not given the project any ‘green light,’” Southwell declared, adding, “They have to submit detailed construction drawings and they have not done that as yet.”
The DCA head said the developer had permission “to do pre-construction work” such as “cutting some roads and surveying the property,” and argued that the promised January groundbreaking would be a “ceremonial thing”.
While the DCA head maintains that no permission for construction has been granted, Al Caribi Development Antigua’s Senior Vice President of Business Development Dawood Shah told residents last month, “Early next year we will break ground… We have DCA approval and all other approvals in place.”
Shah has also told OBSERVER media, “The idea is once we start the work we are not going to stop until we finish the entire project.”
More in today’s Daily Observer.