And so today, 7News spoke with Mayor Darrell Bradley, who they point to as the government authority who is not acting in their best interest.
Bradley told us that City Hall cannot block the development without good reason:
Mayor Darrell Bradley
"I made it very clear to Mr. Heusner that when we deal with regulations and when we deal with the building code, it is that a person applies for a building permit and we will go back to them in relation with certain issues that we may have. As long as they satisfy us with those issues we can't by law block the development. The residents in that area and Mr. Heusner want this thing to be stopped. They have certain remedies that they could take, if it's a nuisance, if its problems that they are finding out they could bring an action in court to deal with the developer directly, but our point of view from the city's responsibility is to regulate them and regulating them means that we are ensuring that they are compliant with the law including the building act and they are building in such a way that ensures that whatever they build comports to certain basic standards including parking and we are doing this, so I don't understand what the issue with the residents are."
"The issue that they seem to present is that they want the city to stop the development we do not have that power. They told me that they want this area to be zoned, I indicated to them that you are going to have 3 problems; Problem one: there are already two businesses that are located in that community. What do you do with those 2 businesses? Problem 2: you are in one of the most commercialize areas in Belize City being that this community is along the Northern Highway and strategically the city is planning to zone that area for commercial purposes, exact opposite of what you are doing. Third: my understanding is that this is a residential property; the person wants to build an apartment complex there that will have 10 apartment units. Even if you say that this will be for residential purposes only, the person still can build because what is being built is a residential premises. I had indicated to them that I will entertain the issue of the zoning, but I don't see how that advances your argument to stop this development because what is being built is a residential premises."
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