Crown Land Ordinance passes, PDM says TCI People need more protection

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#TurksandCaicos, March 9, 2023 – Despite the support given to the Crown Land Amendment Bill in the House of Assembly on Tuesday, February 28, some concerns arose about areas of the proposed legislation that some HOA members say leave residents vulnerable.

Edwin Astwood, Opposition Leader raised concerns about the potential valuations of land with Conditional Purchase Leases that residents may want to purchase outright.  He queried what sort of criteria would be used to value the land in light of the TCI’s increasing real estate costs, maintaining that the market value might have spiked significantly since residents got their CPLs and this could price residents out of their land.

“This is what is going to happen to a lot of our people, they are going to get hit with a price they cannot afford–– and then what happens? They say I might as well surrender this land.”

He also queried the systems put in place to ensure that if residents took the option to exchange their land or surrender it, they were treated fairly, maintaining that he had seen firsthand where residents were moved off of the land and promised other plots that they never got.

Matthew Stubbs, the Member of Parliament for the Bight chimed in with a similar perspective; saying the six month time frame, though an increase from three months, may still not be sufficient for residents to secure funding to accept an offer of crown land from the Government considering how slowly processes in the TCI can move.

Astwood maintained, “As good as this looks and sounds, there are things in here that we have to protect our people [from]— I hope we are protecting our people so that these things don’t happen.”

Despite these concerns, the bill had overwhelming support from both sides of the House.