Editorial | Realign Dolphin Bay Road…with a proviso

This newspaper supports in principle the request by Michael Lee-Chin’s Trident Estate that the Government reroute inland, onto Mr Lee-Chin’s property, around a half a kilometre of the North Coast Highway that runs adjacent to the estate, at Dolphin Bay, in the eastern parish of Portland.

However, if the Government acts on the proposal, the arrangement must be fully transparent and viewed as part of a larger scheme to realign coastal roads and harden seafront infrastructure, given the dangers that global warming and climate change pose to the island’s coastal communities.

Against the backdrop of the seriousness of these issues, we are surprised that when The Gleaner first disclosed Trident Estate’s request a fortnight ago that Paul Thompson, the chairman of the Portland Municipal Corporation, which acts as the parish’s planning authority, claimed official ignorance of the matter. He had heard of the proposal, Mr Thompson said, but had not been formally told of it. The corporation’s chief executive officer, Jennifer Brown-Cunningham, was aware of the suggestion, but said the negotiations were being handled by the National Works Agency (NWA). Mrs Brown-Cunningham’s knowledge seemed tangential, at best. We see no cause for her to keep Mr Thompson in the dark.

This information gap, and the possibility of State institutions and agencies working in silos and at cross-purposes, is unlikely to be the fault of Mr Lee-Chin or Trident Estate. Unless the Portland officials prevaricated, their lack of information is very likely to have been the result of institutional rivalry, or a lack of respect by a notional, central government agency for a local body.

THE PROPOSAL

What so far is known publicly about the proposal, as was reported by The Gleaner, is that Trident proposes to have 520 metres of the existing road move to the south, from along the seashore, onto an eight-hectare (20-acre) portion of its property. The new bypass would be a 760-metre crescent around the property. That would be 240 metres (46 per cent) longer than the eliminated route.

Mr Lee-Chin and Trident would benefit by having a clear seafront to the estate, which would obviously increase its commercial and economic value. That, on the face of it, is something done by the State accruing to the benefit of private interests. Except that if the availability of a beachfront allows for the property’s development – assuming that there is insistence on due care for the environment – for commercial activities, then there is also potential returns to the national economy in terms of the jobs and taxes they generate.

There is also the value that comes with having a road farther from the sea, at a higher elevation. It is less susceptible to rising sea levels and storm surges, thus freeing the State of having to periodically deal with this problem.

Moreover, Mr E.G. Hunter, the CEO of the National Works Agency, suggested that the realignment would be at no cost to taxpayers. “The concept realignment is based on a net zero to the Government with respect to expenditure, meaning the Government does not spend nor receive additional funds above the original intention,” he said.

We take that to mean that costs associated with establishing the new route would be borne by Trident Estate/Michael Lee-Chin. No one could find it contentious, Mr Lee-Chin included, if we insist that there must be water-tight assurances on this score and that the agreement be open to scrutiny. In these circumstances, the quality of the new road, with respect to the standard of its construction and width, should be no less than what currently exists. Rather, it should be substantially better.

HAPPY COMPROMISE

As The Gleaner reported initially, the Trident/Lee-Chin request for road realignment is not the only one the Government has on the table. And neither is the concept nor financial setoff arrangement alluded to by the NWA’s Mr Hunter novel. The Government has in the past accommodated private property owners when the realignment of a road, to ensure the contiguity of a property, made sense – economic or otherwise.

However, these are often one-off requests when private interests are at stake, rather than an overarching response to the country’s infrastructure needs and how these are being, or are likely to be, impacted by climate change, population densities, and so on. Portland is a case in point. The bit of road that Trident wants to move inland is not the only segment that hugs the shoreline and therefore faces climate dangers. Other stretches, too, also largely retain the alignments that existed before the 1990s rebuilding of the North Coast Highway.

A review of the entire highway, as well as other roads, would make sense. We are aware that with real estate and other developments and the walling off of beaches, travellers along the island’s shorelines have lost much of their enjoyment of the seascape. The further pushing of roads inland will exacerbate these concerns. That should also be a matter for consideration – how Jamaicans can have access to and enjoy the natural environment – when we decide on these matters. With thought, a happy compromise is likely to be achievable.