The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty has grant­ed a Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance (CEC) for a Mar­riott-brand­ed ho­tel and re­sort at Rocky Point, Mt Irvine, To­ba­go, mark­ing a key step for a project aimed at ex­pand­ing the is­land’s tourism ca­pac­i­ty.

The ap­proval, is­sued to Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels of T&T Ltd un­der CEC6451/2022, cov­ers ap­prox­i­mate­ly 11.99 hectares and al­lows for the con­struc­tion of a 200-room ho­tel, along with vil­las, town­hous­es, recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties and green spaces.

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, the EMA said the de­ci­sion aligns with its man­date to fa­cil­i­tate in­vest­ment while en­sur­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal safe­guards are main­tained. The Au­thor­i­ty said the project is ex­pect­ed to sup­port in­creased in­ter­na­tion­al ar­rivals and stim­u­late eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty in To­ba­go.

EMA Tech­ni­cal Man­ag­er (Ag.) Sal­ly Ma­haraj said the ap­proval re­flects a more col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach to de­vel­op­ment over­sight.

“This ap­proval rep­re­sents a key strate­gic ef­fort by the EMA un­der the guid­ance of the new board of di­rec­tors, re­flect­ing a strength­ened, more col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach to en­gage­ment with stake­hold­ers. It un­der­scores our com­mit­ment to im­prov­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness while up­hold­ing rig­or­ous en­vi­ron­men­tal stan­dards, in sup­port of sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment across T&T,” she said.

The EMA con­firmed that the ap­pli­ca­tion un­der­went a full En­vi­ron­men­tal Im­pact As­sess­ment (EIA), which eval­u­at­ed po­ten­tial ef­fects on phys­i­cal, bi­o­log­i­cal and so­cio-eco­nom­ic con­di­tions. The process in­clud­ed pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions and stake­hold­er en­gage­ment.

The Au­thor­i­ty said iden­ti­fied im­pacts have been ad­dressed through mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures em­bed­ded in the project de­sign. These in­clude pro­tec­tions for coastal ecosys­tems such as coral reefs, with con­trols on ef­flu­ent dis­charge, set­backs, earth­works and waste­water man­age­ment.

Mea­sures are al­so planned to re­duce im­pacts on sea tur­tles and nest­ing habi­tats, in­clud­ing con­struc­tion sched­ul­ing, light­ing con­trols, beach man­age­ment and mon­i­tor­ing pro­grammes.

The EMA not­ed that the ap­proved de­vel­op­ment does not in­clude coastal or ma­rine works but in­cor­po­rates drainage sys­tems, wa­ter qual­i­ty con­trols, preser­va­tion of her­itage as­sets such as Fort Mon­ck and pub­lic shore­line ac­cess.

Chair­man of Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels T&T John Aboud said the ap­proval process took be­tween two-and-a-half and three years and de­scribed it as rig­or­ous.

He said the com­pa­ny ex­pe­ri­enced im­proved col­lab­o­ra­tion with reg­u­la­tors and is en­cour­aged by the cur­rent ap­proach, not­ing that the project will now move to se­cure fi­nal ap­provals from the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion be­fore con­struc­tion be­gins.

The EMA added that ad­di­tion­al ap­provals will be re­quired from agen­cies in­clud­ing the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.