The former Government of the Anguilla United Front recently, during its terms of office, compulsorily acquired some areas of privately-owned land for a public purpose – to facilitate the Blowing Point Port Development project.
The result has been that some of the owners resorted to seek legal advice. Since then, the Anguilla Progressive Movement, which won the June 2020 general elections, assumed office and undertook to revive the project. Among other matters, the decision, as it relates to the Ministry of Infrastructure and Tourism, was taken to change the location of the Blowing Point Ferry Terminal, thus avoiding the need and usage of the acquired land. It was therefore decided that the land should be returned to the owners.
The matter was taken up Monday, November 9, during The Facts programme, a weekly presentation on Radio Anguilla by the Leader of the Opposition, Mrs. Cora Richardson-Hodge, and her colleague, Mr. Evans Rogers. They previously held the respective appointments of Minister of Home Affairs and Minister of Lands in the Anguilla United Front Government.
In raising the issue of the land acquisition in Blowing Point, Mr. Rogers referred to the Minutes of the Executive Council’s Meeting of October 29, 2020. He quoted a section of the Minutes as follows:
“The Honourable Minister for Infrastructure, Communications, Utilities, Housing and Tourism, briefed Council on the status of the Blowing Point Ferry Terminal project. The re-positioning of the project meant that construction can proceed without using certain land compulsorily acquired on November 30, 2018. The Honourable Minister consequently recommended that the acquired land should be returned to the original owners.
In relation to reinstating the parcels of land, the Director of Lands and Surveys indicated that (1): the relevant land parcels are registered to the Crown; they have been leased to the Anguilla Air and Sea Ports Authority and these leases would need to be surrendered before the parcels could be transferred to the original owners.
And (2), compensation for the use of the land by the Government of Anguilla from November 2018 needs to be calculated and paid the landowners.
“Council thanked the Honourable Minister for Infrastructure for the update and agreed with his recommendation to return the land recently acquired from the former owners, and request the Honourable Attorney General and the Director of Lands and Surveys to commence the process of returning the lands.”
The Opposition member, Mr. Rogers, continued: “This not only gives me cause for concern, but it is really disheartening. As it says here, with the repositioning of the building – whether they scaled the building down or moved it a little different – the lands that we are talking about, if my memory serves me correctly, are lands adjoining the land where the building will be put down…
“From this, the scaling down and repositioning of the building, the construction can now proceed and certain lands, that were compulsorily acquired, would no longer be needed for the construction of the building. But, around the building, you can have parking and other things that are necessary if we are moving forward. What that land would cost today, would be a fraction of what it would be after the building has been erected.
“If my memory serves me correctly, there were two bits of land down there – one was 0.12 and 0.13 of an acre – and there was some contention about the matter. Lawyers were involved and evaluation processes, and so on, were taking place. We compulsorily acquired the land, through the legislative process, and it is registered in the Crown’s name. The issue, at that particular point and time, was how much was the compensation for 0.12 and 0.13 of an acre of land.”
After trying to figure out, on a map he had, where the acquired areas of land were, the former Minister of Lands added: “When it comes to the development of land for a project for a public purpose…there must be compensation.”
Mrs. Richardson-Hodge commented: “This decision [to return the land to the owners] is pretty much undoing the decision for Government to own the land which is now to be transferred to the owners.”
Mr. Rogers was of the view that moving the building from infringing on the acquired land, now to be returned to the owners, “does not mean that you don’t need to acquire that piece of land.” He further stated: “I am critical of this matter about giving back the land because Government will never have too much land. There will always be situations where Government will have to compulsorily acquire land for a public purpose. Government may not have the funds, but may be able to exchange land somewhere else. It is not that the land in Blowing Point needs to be exchanged, but the Government/Air and Sea Ports Authority needs to have that land for the overall development and efficient functioning of the port. It would be short-sighted to give back that land to the owners.”
Mrs. Richardson-Hodge replied: “Well, we will see where this will take us in the very near future.”
“I will keep an eye on it,” Mr. Rogers concluded the discussion.
