The Minister of Environment who has sole discretion over special planning approval for a slew of hotel developments including Southlands has declined to lay out the criteria for her decision making.

In an interview with The Royal Gazette yesterday Minister Neletha Butterfield answered with a ‘no comment’ when pressed for her definition of national importance.

That phrase is critical to the process because a hotel developer has to prove his project is of national importance if he wants to be granted a special development order.

Developer Southlands Ltd. has requested two SDOs.

Ms Butterfield said she couldn’t comment on national importance “because you’re specifically going into Southlands and then it will be quoted exactly what the Minister said”.

If the Minister had answered the question it would’ve given developers and conservationists alike their first chance at foretelling the fate of four hotel projects simultaneously seeking six SDOs — an exceptionally high number to be under consideration at one time.

Although evasive on national importance, Ms Butterfield’s subsequent comments suggest she is highly interested in helping to revitalise the tourism industry with either new or updated properties.

“We can look back at tourism and what happened at the end of 2006,” she explained.

“There has been growth. With the growth, do we have the beds to accommodate?”

She used the world famous PGA Grand Slam of Golf coming to Bermuda in October as an example.

“You don’t want to get in the news or in the public domain that here we are having this big event and there’s not enough beds space.

“This is where we have to be careful.

“We have to move on these developments that are coming.”

The Minister further explained a scenario like the one she laid out is a potential nightmare in terms of public relations.

“It would be devastating to the country,” she said.

The Southlands proposal in Warwick would include a five-star hotel on a south shore cliff, condominiums, staff living quarters, and a tunnel which would put part of South Road underground.

Some of the 37-acre property was previously zoned as legally protected space, an SDO approval would change that.

Ms Butterfield said: “Many many years ago some of the open space that we have now had been zoned as tourism.

“And that’s what is happening with Southlands - not all of it is zoned as tourism, but part of it is zoned as tourism for the future. And that future has come.”

The Bermuda National Trust has been publicly critical of the number of SDOs issued of late, a spokesperson last month said she had, “grave concerns”.

Environmentalist Stuart Hayward echoed those concerns earlier this week when he said Southlands and the other SDOs currently under review do not measure up to the level of “national importance”.

But once again, citing the PGA example, Minister Butterfield believes if the country’s tourism industry isn’t ready for the big events there will be a lot of second guessing.

“Someone’s gonna say, ‘gee I wish we had that Southlands Hotel’.

“So as a country we do have to look at the new way of doing things, the new developments that are coming on, and what they’re providing for us,” she said.

Minister stays silent