Premier André Ebanks MP has put a trade to the business community: faster government handling of development applications in return for developers putting their own money into affordable housing within reach of the projects they build. He put the proposition to the Cayman Islands Chamber of Commerce's annual parliamentary luncheon at the Kimpton Seafire on Friday, 9 October 2026, and said one Seven Mile Beach developer had already agreed to it the day before.

The remarks came at the close of a 44-minute address in which the Premier also said the government intends to put a new development plan before Parliament "if not by the end of the year, by Q1 next year", that planning legislation is being revamped with some work "outsourced to third parties" and some done by artificial intelligence, and that the country must "admit to ourselves that the land in the country is finite and we may have to go higher". They land in the same week that the Central Planning Authority (CPA) meets, today, 14 October, to decide 27 applications and three rezonings, one of them opposed by a neighbour who cites the government's own affordable housing policy against an eight-unit apartment block in West Bay.

"Time is money": the developer's complaint and the Premier's answer

The Premier told the luncheon he had rewritten the end of his speech after a meeting on Thursday, 8 October, which he attended with the Chamber's incoming president, at the Watermark development on Seven Mile Beach. He showed a slide of the building's interior. The developer's concern, he said, was operational rather than political. "Even if all of the reforms that we say come online, even if the plan is there, even if we go higher, his concern was still operationally, will it be able to facilitate my application and get me to the finish line, because time is money."

The Premier said the developer "believes in the vision of the minister, believes in what Chief Officer Bush is telling you", a reference to Eric Bush, chief officer in the Ministry of Planning, Lands, Agriculture, Housing and Infrastructure. The developer's point, the Premier said, was that "if it delays a year and I lose X amount of millions of dollars, that's time gone, and faith and credit lost in the country."

His response, as he recounted it, was to put a price on speed. "So I said, okay, let me ask you this. If you lost whatever it is in that year, eight, ten million dollars, but you had expedited service for another project and it got done on time, rather than the ten million dollars that you would have lost, you plumped two million dollars down within the radius of your development to go build the government's affordable housing. And he said, I would do that. I'd do that in a heartbeat."

The Premier said the developer told him he needed "the grassroots to understand why I need this building built", and that the same developer had already set up an academy to train young Caymanians to "the culinary and hospitality standards for that clientele". He then widened the offer to the room. "When you ask yourselves how you can help, if we get you, in whatever business line you're in, the expedited service that you need, will you then turn around and lean in to help government, to Christina's point that we can't get to it all on our own, to make the grassroots feel the success that you all are feeling, in their homes." He closed the passage with a direct question: "Will you partner with me to crack this development dilemma that we have in the country?"

The Premier did not say how an expedited service would be defined, who would qualify for it, whether the housing contribution would be voluntary or a condition of approval, or how it would sit with the Development and Planning Act, under which applications are decided by the CPA and the Department of Planning rather than by Cabinet. Nothing in the address suggested that the arrangement with the Watermark developer had been written down.

Planning law, the development plan and building higher

The affordable housing proposition was framed by a set of commitments on the planning system itself. The Premier said Mr Bush and his minister, Johany "Jay" Ebanks MP, are "working on revamping planning legislation", with work "outsourced to third parties" and "AI that can do some of the heavy lifting so that we get leaner". He said the aim is to "have the development plan to the House, if not by the end of the year, by Q1 next year, so we have a vision of where we're going as a country".

He linked that plan to density. "To admit to ourselves that the land in the country is finite and we may have to go higher. The question is where do you go higher, and how high. But we have to face that as a country." The current Development Plan dates from 1997; the three rezoning applications before the CPA today are each framed as amendments to it.

On the wider tension between development and the environment, the Premier said the government "will have to engage in dialogue" through the Cayman Forward initiative, and that a working group chaired by Hector Robinson KC had been set up "with two subcommittees" to "get to work on that". He described the issue as "thorny" and said the country needed "Cayman Forward to bridge the gap between development and environment".

The Premier also pointed to the Grand Hyatt development, which he said he had visited during a parliamentary lunch break with the Deputy Premier, Minister Michael Myles MP and the Leader of the Opposition, in whose constituency it sits. He said the government's message to its developers was: "We need this product. Continue to work with us. We can extend facilities to you. We can show you get expedited treatment. But we need to know that our people are not just at the blue collar level. They're also taking middle management jobs."

What the Central Planning Authority decides today

The Authority's 137-page agenda for today's meeting, published on 7 October, offers a test of the Premier's framing. Its decisions from the 30 September meeting have not yet been published, so the record below is of what is before it, what the Department of Planning recommends and what the consulted agencies have said.

The only item with a recorded objection is P26-0449, by Kevin Wall through CS Designs, for eight two-bedroom apartments and a pool on Block 10E Parcel 21 on Marsh Road, West Bay, with a stated value of CI$4.0 million. The parcel is zoned Hotel/Tourism and is 0.4 acres against a minimum of 0.5 acres under regulation 10(1)(c) of the Development and Planning Regulations (2024 Revision). The Department has asked the Authority to discuss the lot size, a stair setback of seven feet against a required 20, a solid waste enclosure one foot from the boundary against six, and "concerns of the objectors".

The objector, an adjacent landowner, built the case on the Government's Public and Affordable Housing Policy and ten-year Strategic Plan, arguing the scheme "falls short" of its objectives. The letter says the units "are supported by communal facilities, including shared laundry facilities, limited parking and a very small communal pool that appears inadequate for the number of occupants", that "the plans present a tenament yard style of living", and that the development "appears more suited to transient occupancy or short-term rental accommodation than to providing stable, long-term homes". The applicant's agent replied that the objection rests on "broader policy interpretations and general opinions about residential density and lifestyle preferences", that apartment use "is expressly permitted within the zoning" and that the scheme is "fully compliant with all applicable Planning Regulations". The Department of Environment called the site "man-modified and of limited ecological value" but noted that "Marsh Road is particularly prone to flooding"; the National Roads Authority put the added traffic at 20 to 100 trips a day and asked for a six-foot sidewalk. The applicant appears at 2.30pm.

Heritage Holdings Ltd returns at 3pm with P26-0190, a six-lot subdivision of 3.283 acres of Marine Commercial land on Block 20C Parcel 186 beside the Jay Bodden Highway, referred to the National Conservation Council on 1 April and adjourned at the applicant's request on 24 June. The Department of Environment told the Authority the land holds red, white, black and buttonwood mangroves, that if the lots are not developed "there is no social benefit to set against the environmental harm from habitat fragmentation and loss", and that the parcel "may contain parrot nesting sites". If the Authority is minded to approve, the DoE asked for a condition that "a 75-foot mangrove buffer shall be maintained along the parcel's coastline" and that no clearing or filling of the resulting lots take place without separate permission.

Three rezoning applications follow, each with the same recommendation from the Department, that the Authority consider the amendment "with special consideration to matters of suitability". The largest, RZ26-0003 by Triple A Holdings Ltd, seeks to move 5.86 acres of undeveloped mangrove on Block 13D Parcel 428, west of the Esterley Tibbetts Highway and about 500 metres south of the George Town landfill, from High Density Residential to General Commercial for a storage park, with a stated intention to apply for "a five-story (sixty-five feet high) building", the maximum the new zone allows against three storeys or 40 feet now. The Department's analysis says the landfill's "documented history of fire events" and the highway make the site "generally less compatible with high-density residential development". The DoE said the mangroves are "part of some of the last remaining mangroves in this area", that it had "minimal concerns with the proposed re-zoning" but that "any clearing or filling of the mangroves at this time would not be covered and, would therefore, be an offence under the NCA".

RZ26-0002 by Technowall Systems Ltd seeks General Commercial zoning for 2.343 acres off Bodden Town Road that already carry a 15,817 sq ft storage building approved in 2022. RZ26-0001 by Makani LLC runs the other way, asking for 0.86 acres of Hotel/Tourism land off Austin Conolly Road in East End to become Low Density Residential for a single house, a change the Department of Tourism called "compatible with the existing character and uses within the surrounding area".

The morning is given to after-the-fact works: an addition on Christian Berry Drive where the Department notes the drawings "do not show a common wall" for what is described as a duplex; land clearing on Block 27D Parcel 515; a house on Block 72B Parcel 216; six 40-foot storage containers on a residential parcel on Leroy Frederick Drive, Bodden Town; a fence and signs at the Jehovah's Witnesses church on Walkers Road; and clearing by Captain Marvin's Watersports Ltd on Gregory Street, North Sound Estates, alongside its CI$300,000 application for two docks, two inlets and two seawalls. Elsewhere, Charles Russell Jr seeks a CI$1.7 million retail and warehouse building on the McRuss grocery site on Marina Drive, Prospect, where a 2020 approval for the same plans expired because a building permit was never issued, and the Ministry of Planning applies on behalf of the National Housing Development Trust for a CI$68,000 park on Rocky Pond Drive, West Bay. Three duplexes in Savannah and Bodden Town each fall short of the 12,500 sq ft minimum lot size, at 10,088, 10,489 and 10,075 sq ft. The Department recommends approval outright for only three items: a modification to a three-lot subdivision of 26 acres north of Canal Point Road, a gazebo on Adonis Drive, West Bay, and a CI$150,000 parking lot in George Town.