Elbow Beach Hotel has moved one step closer to realising its expansion dreams -- prompting nightmares for area residents.

Government officials have recommended that the South Shore, Paget hotel should receive permission for a parking lot for some 189 cars and 60 motorcycles on land designated for agriculture, 66 new junior suites, a conference centre and ballroom.

And the hotel's operators plan to build a service road and erect a waste treatment plant in an area designated woodland reserve.

The proposal has been recommended for approval by the Departments of Health, Works and Engineering, Agriculture and Tourism.

During an all day meeting of the Development Application Board on Wednesday, technical officers from the Planning Department said they were "satisfied'' that the changes were "permitted forms of development and reasonable for this site''.

They recommended that the board approve the hotel's applications. The DAB deferred its decision pending a site visit.

The loudest objector to the waste treatment plant is Elbow Beach neighbour, Stonington Beach Hotel.

Development plans submitted to the DAB show the facility will be erected some 30 feet from the boundary separating the two hotels.

And 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, which 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, now designated for tourism use, rezoned to residential.

According to plans submitted to the DAB, 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.

But chartered surveyor Ted Gauntlett advised that the hotel should have a different commercial service road due to poor visibility at the exit of Cataract Hill Road and the presence of an existing alternative access roadway on the hotel's property.

A Cataract Hill spokesman said: "My question is, if you are in the tourism business, why do you want to change it from tourism to residential?'' He suggested the answer could lie in an earlier, abandoned, hotel plans to build 29 units, most with swimming pools, on the woodlands area which have "wonderful panoramic views of the Island''.

Elbow Beach has since put those plans on the "back burner''. Planning records said: "There are no details provided with this proposal as the applicant (Elbow Beach) only wishes to establish the general area where development can take place.'' TOURISM TOU