USVI-On-Line

Have been very sick lately so just catching up on my "St. John" addiction. Read in 1 of the online papers that Sirenusa (the condo development that, I think, looks like it raped the hillside above Cruz Bay) is asking for a rezoning so it can add 7 additional units, including 3 and 4-story buildings! Yuk. Talk about changing the character of the St. John that so many of us love.

Don't know how much the Dept. of Planning & Natural Resources can be affected by input from any of you fellow forumites but I'm encouraged by the fact that the planned development of Maho Bay was squelched by input by many of you.

Unfortunately we don't have much time. The rezoning hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, 12/12 at 10am in St. John (St. John Legislature's Conference Room). If any of you feel so led, please try to communicate your feelings to (the only info I can find): Marjorie Hendrickson-Emanuel, Director of the Dept. of Planning & Natural Resources, Division of Comprehensive and Coastal Zone Planning, Government of the Virgin Islands.

Phone #: 340-774-3320; Fax #: 340-714-9534. For those who live on St. John, I believe some petitions are being circulated as well. If any of you have better or updated information, please let me know.

Thank you!

Someone just e-mailed me to inform me that the rezoning means they could actually double the number of units on that land and could actually build six story units (not the 3-4 that I first referred to).

Hopefully, there'll be enough opposition, and communication to that effect, that this will be squelched (as the 9-story proposed Pastory condos & Maho Bay development were).

As I'm writing this, I keep thinking of the old Joni Mitchell song, Big Yellow Taxi, with the refrain running through it of "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot."

I pray St. John would somehow stay the paradise we all know and love. Nothing's perfect but STJ comes awfully close in my book...