The government has been hit with yet another injunction after an environmental group complained that it has moved ahead with a second "flawed" public consultation over Peter Nygard's development-related applications. The move on the part of the government to continue the process of considering the applications came despite a previous legal action against an initial public consultation on the matter having yet to be concluded and an injunction against further consideration of the applications still being in place.
The Coalition to Protect Clifton Bay was also granted leave to seek judicial review of the government's actions for a second time during a hearing on Monday.
In a shift from the initial judicial review action launched by Save the Bays, the latest judicial review action challenges not only the consultation process itself, which the coalition maintains is again "flawed" due to lack of available information, but also the government's apparent failure to produce a land use plan to guide the determination of any development approvals in the country.
Lawyers have pointed out in the action that a land use plan which is consistent with "national land use development policies" is called for under the Planning and Subdivision Act, which came into effect in January 2011. The act suggests that once approved, the plan should "guide" the government whenever it is considering any application for development approval, but it is yet to be produced some three and a half years later.
Dawson Malone, attorney for the Coalition to Protect Clifton Bay, said the group had to move "urgently"
to file for the judicial review and injunction against the government after it noticed that the government had yet again published public notices indicating that it intended to engage in public consultation over various approvals sought by the billionaire fashion mogul for further development of his property at the tip of Lyford Cay.
"The reason why we had to move urgently was because the second consultation process was due to expire today," Malone told Guardian Business.
Fellow attorney on the matter, Romauld Ferreira, said the government set a precedent in the case of approvals granted to Resorts World Bimini for its North Bimini Ferry Terminal for moving quickly to accommodate developers, leaving the coalition with little option but to quickly launch its second legal battle with respect to the government's apparent intention to push ahead with the Nygard consultation process.
"Bimini was a huge eye opener in terms of just how far the government is willing to go to accommodate the right person. So with these issues I think people may get desensitized, but these are important. It's saying you have to follow the rules everyone else has to follow. The government is trying to circumvent the rules for those they favor, and they've shown that, under the right circumstances they're capable of moving very, very quickly," said Ferreira.
The action names Prime Minister Perry Christie, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Works Philip Davis, Director of Physical Planning Michael Major, the Town Planning Committee, the Minister of the Environment and Housing Kenred Dorsett, Minister of Transport and Aviation Glenys Hanna Martin, Buildings Control Officer Craig Delancy and the Department of Physical Planning as respondents.
Notices indicating plans to push ahead with another public consultation on Nygard's applications appeared gazetted in The Nassau Guardian in August. Less than a month earlier, the Supreme Court had granted injunction requests against the government preventing the Christie administration from making decisions on Nygard's applications for building permits and Crown land.
The initial injunction and judicial review action approval came after both environmental group Save the Bays (STB) and 103 Lyford Cay residents and property owners moved to sue the government over what STB called its "fundamentally flawed" consultation process over Nygard's applications. It was claimed that critical information that was supposed to be made available to members of the public in that process was not.
Malone said that the latest judicial review action, allowed to proceed by Justice Bain, "highlights the failure of the government, with a piece of legislation in force since January 1, 2011, to do a very simple task - to produce the land use plan."
"It's supposed to be produced under the act, to be published on the government website," he added.
The injunction restrains the government from doing certain things until the judicial review application is determined.
These include: carrying out the consultation processes in relation to applications made by Nygard, considering applications made by Nygard or granting approvals with respect to the applications made.
A hearing has been set for October 29 and 30 during which the government can apply to have the injunction lifted.

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