By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

RESIDENTS of Love Beach say they are in the dark over the reported approval of the controversial “The View at Love Beach” project and don’t know what exactly the government has approved.

Erica Pople-Ferreira, managing partner at Ferreira and Company, who represents one of the Love Beach residents, told Tribune Business yesterday she was “not aware” that “The View at Love Beach Residences development,” was approved and ready to commence construction within the next two weeks.

Ms Pople-Ferreira said: “My earlier comments on the project still stand. Based on my previous comments, there was grave concern about the disruption to the peaceful neighbourhood, the possibility of rodents, etc… increasing and nothing would have changed. My previous comments stand.

My client vehemently opposed the project and I made note of that. I wrote to the government, to the Ministry of Works.”

The project’s controversial developer, Dr Mirko Kovats, said in yesterday’s Tribune Business that he was given approval in September to commence all works regarding the Love Beach project, which he also said will begin towards the end of January.

 The project had several concerns raised by residents at several town hall meetings over the last three years. The first concern was with regard to the height of the building, blocking the view of the beach for other residents of the Love Beach area and also the height not being within the Ministry of Works guidelines.

 The second major concern was that the project would bring increased traffic to the peaceful and somewhat secluded area of Love Beach, which would increase the likelihood of more crime and other pestilences that come with increased human activity.

 The third concern was residents didn’t want a hotel developed in their community. However, there has been no indication the hotel development has been scrapped from the project’s plans. Calls to the Ministry of Works and the Department of Physical Planning have been fruitless as most people are out of office due to the Christmas holidays.

 Ms Pople-Ferreira also said: “I attended the town meeting, along with my client. Most persons in the room were opposed to the project at that time. I don’t know what they could have done differently that would take the government on the route to approving the project.

“The project would have also been against the building restrictions in the neighbourhood. I’m extremely concerned.”

  Maria Ageeb, a resident of Love Beach, also told Tribune Business that while she was made aware that the project had been approved in October she too is not aware of exactly what has been given the go-ahead.

 She said: “This is very disheartening. I’m not entirely sure what their final approval was for, so I don’t know if there’s anything that we were really against that did get approved or not. Most of what we truly were against the Town Planning Committee supported that, so hopefully what they finally got approved was a little more reasonable.”

 Ms Ageeb hopes they “didn’t get the hotel approved,” as it was one of the major issues about the project.

 “As far as I’m concerned it is only supposed to be unit condos. A whole lot of condos and it will be right behind my house. They call this development, but now there will be a ton of people in my neighbourhood, but they call that progress,” she added.

 Ms Ageeb added: “They should also shorten the building because it was something we were very much against, which was them going outside of the restrictive boundaries and the height was a big thing.

 “Everything I heard about the developer has been negative, he seems like he’s a piece of work, but he has his foothold in this country and there is nothing much we can do about it.”