By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The controversial The View at Love Beach project has not yet started despite earlier reports that it was to start in January.

Alexander Christie, partner at McKinney Bancroft and Hughes and attorney acting on behalf of Dr Mirko Kovats on The View at Love Beach project, told Tribune Business everything is moving smoothly with the project and the negative propaganda about his clients business practices have not put him off from investing in The Bahamas.

The project was reported to begin construction in January, but this has been put back.

Dr Wolfgang Groeger, speaking on behalf of the Kovats Family Office in Vienna Austria, also told Tribune Business by email: “The project is in the building design stage for building permit application. A foundation can be built only once building approvals granted.”

All of these permits will be secured by “the second half of the year” as the project architects are “working on all of the details”, Dr Groeger added.

However, Dr Groeger told this newspaper last year December that Dr Kovats was given full approval in September to start the project in January of this year. The project was initially rejected by the Town Planning Committee only to be approved by the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board.

Maria Ageeb, a resident of the Love Beach area, also told Tribune Business: “I haven’t seen anything happening at the property yet, but we can’t do anything about it when it does start.

“We have another development going on right behind our house for the past two years, so we had to live with that.”

The Westend Love Beach Bahamas is half completed and is said to be on track for an early 2023 completion date as said on the company’s website.

The project does not interfere with the view of the beachfront and easement the way The View at Love Beach has been reported to do.

Ms Ageeb also said however with regard to the Westend development: “You can see the huge concrete gray development and concrete buildings, they are building right up to the border. You don’t have any more privacy and traffic is going to be a pain now. Traffic is already bad now, but it is going to get a lot worse now than it ever was. But this is all for progress, right?”

Dominique Strachan, another resident of Love Beach, added: “Dr Kovats was supposed to start building in January, but I haven’t see anything from him yet. We are just waiting.”

Dr Kovats has been accused of land speculation as an earlier bid for the old South Ocean property was rejected by the government in 2014 for fear he would just sit on the property and do nothing with it.