Aquarius at Red Pond
The more I see about this project, the more it pisses me off. I found a picture of the Aquarius plans, and boy will they be packing those residences in. The Eratos are the developers of this project - I don't know if you have seen their other building projects - Pt. Pirouette and Rainbow. I have not been inside
Rainbow, but have passed by - it looks as if the same thing that afflicts Pt. Pirouette is in action at Rainbow as well - poor planning. Streets are too narrow, not enough parking, no planning for future changes. You gotta pack those houses in there right? Wouldn't want to give up on getting those extra hundreds of thousands of dollars. Who cares if residents cannot buy anything larger than a go cart if they want to park in walking distance of their front door. This is going to happen at Red Pond and it is very very sad.
Here is a 2nd attempt with a more detailed site plan:
It is interesting that in the plan, the "pond" is pretty and blue, and they are going to put a nice walkway around it, etc.
In real life the pond is either green, if it has been raining, or dirt colored and sort of frothy white at the edges, if it has not been raining. It shrinks and expands all the time, and it is not a million dollar view unless you are an ecologist or entomologist or one of those types of -ists.
Now, I like all that nature stuff. This is a great spot to come for a walk and see what St. Maarten would really look like (at least on this side of the island) if people didn't keep adding palm trees and bouganvillea everywhere. However, I fear that the developers of this project will not see it that way when folks are reluctant to buy the pond-front homes, and will choose to perhaps dredge the pond a bit, and add some water, and some prettier plants and a little concrete here and there, perhaps a fountain in the middle to keep the water moving and avoid the swamp-stink that occasionally happens...
Also, what about the little stone ruin that is on the property. I don't see any provisions for it in this property layout. Will it be bulldozed?
Yeah, the whole thing sucks.
5 comments:
It pains me to no end to see my island being turned into a parking lot (the roads) with lots of concrete buildings covering everything. I mean, at SOME point they have to deal with infrastructure! In dec/jan, traffic is barely tolerable. What will they do when all those residences become full? Aiya.
Hi Gibber - I know what you mean. I wish the government would at least start charging a property tax, even a very small tax would mean a bucket of money for infrastructure help and might slow development down a bit (which will happen anyway as there is not much land left on the Dutch side!).
I was serious when I mentioned go-carts as transportation - this Sunday I ran into a whole bunch of people on them, out for a day of fun. There needs to be some sort of antidote to the recent infestation of Hummers to this island!
Yeah, I have to say, the Hummers make me laugh. Where are these people going that they need such a big cars? I can barely park my dad's honda.
Wow, nice posting Jess. I hope you don't mind if I add it to the Dawn Beach Thread on SXM PE. The same for the ones about Pelican and Coral Shores.
For those wanting to know more about Red Pond and it's planned development you can find new clippings and commentary going back to when plans were first announced back in Sept last year.
Red Pond Thread
You can also find the same for Dawn Beach, Coral Shores and Ms B;s here
Dawn Beach Thread
The little ruin is reportedly the former home of a slave woman called Venus, who was bought and freed by free slave and given the house to live in. Later they married. She used to farm and fish off the beach and in the pond, catching crawfish which used to live there. The story comes from the Kadasters office so I think its probably close to the mark.
I understand that the Eratos have promised to preserve it, but they also promised to develop in a way that would not impact the ecology of the area, so who knows.
Read this.
The Orient Express/La Samana guys said the same thing about the Cupecoy border wall, that they would restore it and preserve it. Yeah, right. They are about to destroy some more of it I suspect.
Keep up the blogging Jess, you're doing a great job. And if you ever feel like coming over to SXM PE and writing a blog post then you would be more than welcome.
Flipper
Yeah, Gibber, I can't imagine driving one of those things - there is a new Hummer owner living close by to me, and he has to pull over to the side every time there is an oncoming car, because the streets in the neighborhood are too narrow for that behemoth and another car. Why would anyone subject themselves to that kind of hassle?
Hi Flipper and thanks for visiting and commenting. I really enjoyed learning about Venus' house - I do hope that it is preserved, as is the natural state of the pond, but I don't see how they can, with all the houses set up as they are in the plan.
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