a south shore hotel will be able to go ahead with its controversial expansion plans.

The Development Applications Board recently conducted a site visit to the Elbow Beach Hotel to personally survey the property.

The hotel's expansion dreams have been prompting nightmares for area residents.

The Paget hotel plans to construct a parking lot for some 189 cars and 60 motorcycles on land designated for agriculture, 66 new junior suites, a conference centre and ballroom.

They also plan to build a service road and erect a waste treatment plant in an area designated reserved woodlands.

Their proposal has been given the nod of approval from the Ministries of Health, Works and Engineering, Agriculture and Tourism.

And the planning department's technical officers told the DAB during a meeting earlier this month that they were "satisfied'' that the changes were "permitted forms of development and reasonable for this site''.

And they recommended that the board approve the hotel's applications.

The loudest objector to the waste treatment plant is Elbow Beach neighbour, Stonington Beach Hotel. Development plans submitted to the Development Applications Board show that the facility will be erected some 30 feet from the boundary separating the two hotels.

Some of Stonington's top hotel rooms are situated just 30 feet from the wooded boundary.

Residents of Cataract Hill, Paget, worry that their peaceful access road, that runs off South Road, will become a noisy, congested throughway.

And they are not pleased about the hotel's bid to have some of the undeveloped land, presently designated for tourism use, rezoned to residential. According to plans submitted to the Development Applications Board, Elbow Beach also wants to have a woodland boundary pushed back from the hotel.

The plan also calls for the a service road to cut through the remaining woodland area, which contains mainly casuarina trees, linking the hotel to the waste treatment facility.

The site visit was the last step before the DAB gives a decision. There is no word on when a decision will be made.

TOURISM TOU