their official objections to the proposed housing development on Catchment Hill.

The planned Bermuda Properties Ltd. development calls for up to 150 cluster housing units on a hill between Harrington Sound and the Mid Ocean's golf course. There is now a 12-acre cement water catchment on the top of the hill, surrounded by a wooded area.

Bermuda Properties, which owns the land on which Marriott's Castle Harbour and the hotel's golf course are built, maintains it would be an attractive development in keeping with Bermuda's image and housing needs.

In its objections, filed with the Planning Department, Mid Ocean complains that Bermuda Properties obtained permission in principal from Planning in 1990 to build an access road from Harrington Sound to Catchment Hill.

The road would go through a large strip of undeveloped open space -- but in-principal approval was given without the application being publicly advertised.

"The purpose of the access road was to open up almost 40 acres of Catchment Hill,'' the club said through its lawyer Miss Clare Hatcher. "Since the application itself was not advertised, the public did not know and had no chance to voice any opinion at that stage.'' Bermuda Properties relies heavily on that in-principal permission to support its application for the housing development, according to the club.

The club "sees the in-principal permission to build an access road as part of an overall strategy of which the Department of Planning and the public as a whole should be made aware.'' The club also argues that a cluster housing development would be "out of character'' for the area and questions "whether this kind of development is what Bermuda really needs.'' It would decrease the coverage of trees and undergrowth and destroy the views.

The proposed development goes against Government attempts to restrict subdivision, and goes against the goals of the 1983 Development Plan designed to enhance Bermuda's environmental character.

"In 1992 the need to stand by those goals and objectives is more pressing than ever in the interests of preserving Bermuda's environmental future,'' the club says.

The land was bought for the purpose of developing tourist and hotel business in Bermuda in the 1920s, the club argues, but not for this kind of broad development: "Bermuda Properties does not have the legal power to develop and sell off land for anything other than the hotel business.''