The newly hired Executive Director of the Bermuda National Trust has entered the public fray over Special Development Orders (SDO), criticising the Environment Minister for her reluctance to fully explain a set of criteria for their use.

“I think she doesn’t know quite frankly,” said Derek Morris who assumes his new post next month. “I think the Minister is in a very hot seat and she’s not sure what she’s supposed to say.”

The law permits the Environment Minister to grant SDOs for projects deemed of “national importance”. In an interview with The Royal Gazette on January 17, Minister Neletha Butterfield was asked to detail her definition of national importance. She answered with a “no comment”.

She further said she couldn’t comment, telling The Royal Gazette: “You’re specifically going into Southlands and then it will be quoted exactly what the Minister said.”

It might be considered unethical for the Minister to comment specifically on Southlands because the Ministry needs to maintain impartiality.

Southlands is the historic 37-acre property on Warwick’s south shore which developers hope to transform into a five-star hotel with condominiums and an employee dormitory using two SDOs. Mr. Morris, who has 30 years of experience in the tourism industry, is an extraordinarily timely hire for the National Trust because the public debate between rebuilding tourism and preserving open space is reaching a fever pitch.

Even Mr. Morris himself seemed torn between the two.

He believes public dialogue may be the only way for people like him to gather the information needed to make a sound judgment call. That’s why he thinks the public should get a fuller explanation than the one given so far - even if that information needs to come from the Premier himself.

“I don’t think it’s clear from the top,” Mr. Morris hypothesized. “I think they had it in the back of their minds that hotels are very important from this Premier and this Minister of Tourism that we’ve got to have hotels and we’ve got to recreate this industry. He’s all about that. That’s what he was put there for - to get the fire going. And that’s what he is trying to do.”

Political commentators and environmentalists have recently warned that the economy could run the risk of overheating if too much development is approved too quickly.

SDOs are designed to expedite the planning process.

“Special development orders are fine with certain things, but when you’re building major hotels like this, when the public is concerned about open space and the environment there’s got to be dialogue and there’s got to be a way forward on this,” Mr. Morris said.

“We have this thing called sustainable development that was put in place by this Government.

“We have to watch that.

“So what do we do with sustainable development? The Minister just says, ‘yes go ahead’?

“There’s six of them on the board - six SDOs. How many more are we going to have?”

The six tourism related SDOs under consideration include two for Southlands, two more for the Fairmont Southampton, and one each for the Atlantic Resort and CoCo Reef. All of the properties are on the south shore.

Mr. Morris has not suggested, as Shadow Minister Cole Simons did in this newspaper yesterday, that planning laws need to be updated - instead he argued the Minister needs to be more forthcoming.

Incoming Trust director enters SDO fray