With Greed all things are Possible

A man came into possession of a piece of land.
How he did can be debated, but the land was
marked 'No Build'.

Unlike other governmental advisories, this one
is pretty easy to understand. 'No Build' means
that you can Not Build on it. On the other
side of the road a housing scheme was going up
and he wanted to get in on it.

But; this was a No Build area.

Being a rich man he had lawyers investigate
what a No Build area meant.

The lawyers explained in language that he
should understand, that this meant he could
not put up any permanent structure on the land;
i.e. 'Build.'

He wanted to build so he sent them around
nine corners to come up with this plan for
'vacation homes' which would not be
permanent residences.

After doing whatever it took to have this
plan passed and get those houses built
cheek to jowl, he wished to sell them

It was not going well, as people knew
it was a No Build area.

They could see how close to the sea it was
and that it was lower than the road which
ran from the Hope Bridge to St. Thomas.

He waited until October, moved his daughter
into one of the houses, had lots of hype
and newspaper pix and soon all 56 houses
were sold, including the one his daughter
lived in.

Things went well until 2004 and the arrival
of hurricane Ivan which damaged and destroyed
the first row of houses, proving that there was
no sea wall, no coral reef, nothing between the
house and the sea to break its power.

The Residents of Caribbean Terrace gathered
to decided what they should do about it.

Idea were tossed and a lawyer mentioned,
probably without tact, that they could not
consider the value of their homes, for they
were valued Zero.

Each on shrieked at how much his or her home
was valued, unable to grasp that no one in
their right mind would pay 100k for a house
in Caribbean Terrace.

"My House is valued at Sixteen Million!" one
woman shrieked, and before they sent out
for two sticks and three nails, the lawyer
left them to form committees and make demands.

In 2005 and 2006 nothing happened, so everyone
thought it was a fluke and hence would not be
selling their house, save for Full Value.

In 2007 Dean hit, and destroyed the entire first
row and flooded even those farthest from the
sea

The No Build discussion reopened
and the committee was contacted by the Minister
and negotiations were entered.

Eight Million was offered for the larger and
Five Million for the smaller houses.

The Committee turned this down.

They hooted and hollered and argued and were
no longer to be welcome at the Ministry.

As Government held all the cards what was
decided was to not officially declare the
area No Build , which would
make the Gov liable to remove the people.

However, no change of ownership could be
registered on the Title.

Hence outside of those in the first row
who got 5.1M for their houses, the rest
got nothing, and were left to await the
next disaster.