Bermuda’s National Trust is not opposed to building up in the City of Hamilton but its leaders said new development plans need to be inked to re-state the Island’s development strategy in the current climate if the planning process is to remain relevant.

National Trust president Bill Holmes and conservation officer Dorcas Roberts met on Friday with The Royal Gazette at the group’s offices in Paget to speak on a slew of hot button development issues, including building heights in Hamilton, inadequacies at the Department of Planning and Special Development Orders.

Discussing first the subject of city building heights, Mr. Holmes said: “It is now obvious that the time has come to address going up in Hamilton.”

The statement came only days after Sir John Swan’s ten-storey Seon Place building, proposed for Front Street, went before the Ministry of Environment on appeal. The National Trust objected to its construction and the Applications Board officially rejected it. A handful of other developers, with buildings that go beyond the traditional six or seven storeys, also seek planning approval for their projects.

Mr. Holmes said: “It’s obvious from the plans that have come forward over the last 18 months that there is real interest and desire, from a bunch of different quarters, to go up in Hamilton. And we can see the merits of it in the appropriate places.”

But before the National Trust will throw its influential support behind a building taller than is typical, it is calling for both the Ministry of Environment and the Corporation of Hamilton to make changes to their public development plans.

If the plans reflected higher rise buildings as the norm for Hamilton, National Trust administrators said, they might be swayed to support the projects.

Ms Roberts explained: “The reason we’ve objected to certain buildings is because they are so far outside the regulations all the time — height-wise and storey-wise — that we feel the precedent it would set would undermine the development plan in such a way that it would enable ad hoc high development.”

Although Mr. Holmes did not outline a specific building height limit, he said one would need to be determined.

“Are we talking eight, ten, 12, 14 — I know the Mayor (Sutherland Madeiros) alluded he didn’t want 60. We definitely would want less than 60 storeys also,” he said. “But once those aspects are determined and written down as part of the planning statement, then we’ll be more than happy to look at the individual merits of each building plan that comes in.”

The Ministry of Environment has a development plan which covers the entire country while the Corporation has a separate strategy called the city of Hamilton Plan 2001.

Rewriting those documents will take time, but could be well worth it, according to the National Trust, because it will reduce the need for developers to seek special development orders (SDO).

A new planning strategy that more closely reflects the current development climate could better utilise the traditional approval process instead of having to lean on the Environment Minister for special consideration.

That kind of efficiency would also guarantee the planning process remains public with complete stakeholder input, instead of having decisions made autonomously at the hands of the Minister.

Environment Minister Neletha Butterfield is faced with six tourism-related SDO requests at present that could breathe new life into the tourism industry which has lobbied for new properties.

It’s an especially high number of SDOs to be under consideration at one time. The statute on SDOs requires the Minister grant an SDO if she believes the development is an issue of national importance.

When asked earlier this month by The Royal Gazette for a definition of national importance, Minister Butterfield replied with a “no comment”.

She has been widely criticised for not answering the question — even the newly hired National Trust Executive Director Derek Morris was critical.

But Mr. Holmes, the National Trust President, had an entirely different take.

“I think the Minister, in that instance, felt that whatever answer she gave would be open to be misconstrued by people,” he said.

“I do not fault her for taking the time to give a measured answer to something that is certainly going to be applied widely around the Island and possibly used as a benchmark for every future SDO application that comes into Bermuda.”

Mr. Holmes also believes the Department of Planning needs more resources and more personnel to keep up with a country facing a high rate of development.

He said, if the department is armed with those additions and a new planning strategy, it can be far more effective than it is currently.