BY Neil Hartnell

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The $200m Rosewood Exuma resort’s chief opponent is maintaining a full-on assault against its rival’s approvals by commissioning a report attacking the “salami-sliced approach” to granting the environmental permits through a process it branded “deeply flawed”.

Andrew Baker, a 40-year British ecology consultant, who asserts that he has worked on numerous Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) including in “tropical” climates such as Malaysia, in a report prepared for Turtlegrass Resort & Island Club argued that the study conducted for the Yntegra Group development did not account for all the changes made to the latter’s design.

His report, which has already been admitted as evidence to Turtlegrass’s Subdivision and Development Appeal Board challenge to Rosewood Exuma’s preliminary site plan approval, argues that the EIA used to support the latter’s certificates of environmental clearance (CEC) failed to account for “all the impacts” of the $200m project because it was based on an earlier plan that was later substantially revised.

As a result, Mr Baker is arguing that the correct EIA version was not placed before the Town Planning Committee when it decided to grant Yntegra preliminary site plan approval for the Big Sampson Cay project earlier this year.

And, in turn, he argues that a CEC issued on the basis of an incomplete EIA means that Rosewood Exuma “cannot satisfy that pre-condition” in the Environmental Planning and Protection Act (EPPA) which requires that a “valid” permit exists before other approvals - including from the Town Planning Committee - can be applied for and obtained.

Mr Baker’s study is one of six that Callender’s & Company attorneys, representing Turtlegrass and its principal, Bob Coughlin, succeeded in persuading the planning Appeal Board to admit as ‘expert’ evidence in their bid to overturn the Rosewood Exuma preliminary site plan approval. And it is also a document that they were yesterday asking the Supreme Court to include among the evidence at the substantive Judicial Review hearing that seeks to challenge the environmental permits.

Yntegra sources declined to comment on the Baker report, citing yesterday’s Supreme Court ‘settling the record’ proceedings as justification for not doing so. The Miami-based developer, though, has repeatedly asserted that it has complied with all legal and technical requirements involved in obtaining its permits, including environmental ones, with all applications subjected to review and scrutiny by the relevant Bahamian regulators.

The Rosewood Exuma developer is likely to view Turtlegrass’s bid to introduce more evidence, and expert opinion, at the 11th hour as a further attempt to snare its project in lengthy and expensive court proceedings that simply add to time delays and costs. Justice Leif Farquharson, who is overseeing the Judicial Review challenges to the project’s CECs, has already asserted his belief that Turtlegrass’s challenge is “not particularly strong” at present.

Mr Baker’s report, though, argues that the Rosewood Exuma EIA failed to assess all the potential environmental effects, and especially their “cumulative impact”, which he said created a “salami slicing approach” to granting the CECs which The Bahamas’ own regulatory regime seeks to avoid. He pointed, in particular, to the second schedule in the EIA Regulations 2020, which stated such studies “must address all significant environmental issues associated with a proposed project”.

“My principal finding is that the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) supporting the application was deeply flawed. The surveys behind it were far too limited - carried out in a single winter season with only three days of survey work,” Mr Baker wrote.

“The assessment simply does not tell the decision-maker what lives on the island and its surrounds, and the value of these habitats and species present, nor what harm the development would cause. A fundamental flaw of the EIA is that it did not consider all the impacts of the scheme, as the design of the proposal has now moved on. The scheme that was assessed is not the scheme that is now proposed.”

Mr Baker said the EIA presented before the Town Planning Committee was the second revised version dated March 19, 2025, while it was also provided with an Environmental Management Plan (EMP) that had also been altered once. However, Callenders & Co had argued that both documents were prepared for an earlier version of the $200m project “and do not correspond to the site plan submitted”.

Noting that Turtlegrass’s attorneys had identified “specific mismatch points” page by page, the UK ecologist pointed to three issues he asserts “are particularly damaging”. He wrote: “First, the dredge extent assessed in the EIA version two appears to understate the dredge required for [the site plan application] by at least 45 percent on the analysis of Smith Warner’s channel width and depth memorandum of May 28, 2025.

“Secondly, the supply dock design depth has changed from −10 feett MLLW (mean lower low water) to −7 feet MLLW without justification. Thirdly, the 390 foot × 40 foot seawall projecting through the cut is modelled in detail by Smith Warner but is not assessed at all in the EIA version two.” All of these issues form Turtlegrass’s main objections to the project proposed by its Big Sampson Cay rival.

“The March 2026 [Town Planning] committee report stated it ‘does not consider these variations undermine the overall integrity of the application, as final designs will be subject to detailed further approvals’,” Mr Baker wrote. “Such an approach is inconsistent with the principles of EIA, as it means that at no time were the full impacts of a scheme assessed and, in particular, the cumulative impact.

“Such a salami-slicing approach is also contrary to the second schedule of the EIA Regulations 2020, which state that ‘the EIA must – ...... address all significant environmental issues associated with a proposed project’.

“In my view, the scale of works that have been omitted because of changes to the design cannot be considered as being insignificant. In my experience, following design freeze, if any material changes are made to the project following the completion and EIA, then a formal update to the EIA is submitted to take into account the changes to the project.”

Seeking to explain what this all means, Mr Baker added: “The proper consequence is that there was no extant EIA of the project actually before the Town Planning Committee. Section 14 of the Environmental Planning and Protection Act makes a valid Certificate of Environmental Clearance a pre-condition for any other approval, including a Town Planning Committee site plan approval.

“A CEC issued on an EIA that does not match [the site plan application] cannot satisfy that pre-condition. This point is logically prior to the substantive critique below: The EIA is not merely a poor assessment, it is an assessment of a different project….

“An EIA can only be relied upon if it assesses the scheme that is actually going to be built. That is not the case here. The EIA and the EMP were prepared for an earlier iteration of the project, and the scheme has since changed materially - the marina was relocated, the dredge extent appears to be substantially understated, the supply dock design depth was altered, and a substantial seawall projecting through the cut is not assessed at all,” Mr Baker continued.

“In addition, it is clear from the chronology of the grant of the four Certificates of Environmental Clearance that these CECs were not informed by either an EIA that was up to date - one which had assessed the scheme which was actually proposed - as they were granted before the EIA version two was published or for the later CECs, which post-dated the EIA version two.

“They were based on a flawed assessment as I have explored in detail here. Furthermore, it should be noted that the early CEC referred to the EMP which, at the time the CECs were granted, had not been produced.”