Board and cleared the way for a major development at the City gateway.

After the successful appeal by Villa Development Company Ltd., work began almost immediately, starting with the East Broadway redevelopment of the old Waterfront Restaurant building on Crow Lane.

The substantial work, expected to cost some $2.5 million, is the latest plan put forward by land developer, Mr. Anthony Smith.

His firm, Villa Development, is now pushing to accomplish the re-working of the building for an April 1 occupancy deadline.

He has owned the waterfront site comprising the abandoned Waterfront restaurant building, East Cottage and Lane House since 1989. There were previous development plans.

Mr. Smith said: "It has cost me a small fortune in interest charges and architectural fees, over a million dollars. There have been several plans. The office block is the latest.'' Mr. Smith admitted frustrations with the Development Applications Board process, but he accepted the DAB had a difficult task and faced a lot of criticism. The process has taken some four months and he calculated a project delay of "six critical weeks''.

Minister the Hon.

Gerald Simons said he did not understand the Board's reasoning in requesting that there be on-site parking to provide for up to 44 cycles and 44 cars.

He suggested there would be an increase in traffic hold-ups and accidents if the Board forced the applicant to provide such parking.

Sen. Simons said in a written decision: "With all due respect, the solution identified by the Board will aggravate the problem the Board is seeking to solve.

"An adequate provision of on-site parking (as proposed by the Board) would only intensify the traffic management problem in the area.'' An application for final planning permission was submitted in March to renovate the existing building and add on an additional 5,500 square feet of floorspace, increasing the capacity of the Waterfront building by some 58 percent.

The application was advertised and no objections were received. The Ministry of Works and Engineering confirmed it had no objections.

The application was submitted to the DAB, with the Planning Department's recommendation for approval.

But the DAB requested additional information on parking and deferred a decision, pending a site visit, but then refused the application a week later, citing the lack of parking.

In overturning that decision this month, Sen. Simons observed that the vacancy of the buildings for a number of years had led to an eyesore blotting the landscape of the access route to the City.

Senator Simons wrote:"Ideally, and as suggested by the Board, it would be preferable to undertake a comprehensive scheme incorporating all the neighbouring vacant sites on the south side of the road.

"Such a scheme would provide scope to improve the traffic management, servicing and parking arrangements which are far from satisfactory.

"However, I do not accept that the rejection of this project will necessarily secure a better comprehensive solution.'' The reasons given to support that opinion include that little had happened with plans to redevelop the entire area, plans stretching back more than two decades. And the Minister was not convinced that neighbouring land owners should, or could, be forced into a cooperative redevelopment scheme.

The Minister said: "Second, there is strong public support for retaining existing buildings, such as Lane House, for their architectural and historical merit.

"All three existing buildings on this site abut the public sidewalk and provide no room for road improvements in the immediate area.

"I am aware that development proposals which included improved traffic management arrangements, proposed demolishing these buildings and proposed an extensive area of land reclamation to compensate for the land dedicated to road improvements.

"Third, overall responsibility for traffic management and road improvements, including the completion of a four-lane highway, rests with the Ministry of Works and Engineering.

"Proposals to upgrade and redevelop the area cannot be resisted because the public highway conditions are unsatisfactory.'' Sen. Simons expressed his satisfaction that the proposal was acceptable and complied with the Planning Statement.

Mr. Smith said that there were an average of more than 40 empty parking bays daily at the City's pay parking site a block away at the beginning of Cavendish Road.

He said: "I do not wish to be critical, but the DAB just couldn't seem to tell me what I needed to do. I wasn't dealing with them directly, but rather through the Director of Planning.

"The Director and his technical people supported the plans. So there had to be a division between them and the Board.

"We went to professionals and delivered things as per specifications and code and then the DAB look at it and say they don't like it.'' He argued that establishing any more on-site parking than he had proposed (four bikes, four cars and a service area) would have required an unacceptable level of foreshore reclamation.

Last month, in response to the Board's position, Mr. Smith confirmed that he could secure a binding agreement with the owner of a Victoria Street lot to provide 36 car parking spaces for the exclusive use of the tenants of the Waterfront development.

The Minister stated: "I am advised that the Board found this solution unacceptable because of the distance between the parking lot and the application site.

"I do not understand the Board's position in this regard. It is generally agreed that the characteristics of the site and the heavy traffic flows on East Broadway do not favour the provision of on-site parking.

"The applicant put forward a perfectly reasonable proposal to provide off-site parking some five to 10 minutes walk from the site.'' Sen. Simons said that the distance was not excessive in an urban environment and was in fact comparable to the distance between the Bull's Head multi-storey car park and the central business district. He concluded that accessibility was not an issue and the question of whether the parking arrangements would be convenient rested not with the Board, but with the tenants.