UPDATE, MAY 2026: The EMA awarded a Certificate of Environmental Clearance (CEC) for the development of Rocky Point to Superior Hotels on April 28th.
This was part of a new fast-tracking process by the EMA who granted the approval based on an EIA that scientists on its own committee rejected in its current form. The Institute of Marine Affairs (IMA) signed off their review:
“To approve this project in its current state would be to ignore established scientific evidence and international environmental standards, leading to the foreseeable destruction of Tobago’s vital marine assets.”
These are a series of articles written for the Trinidad Sunday Express in 2022 and 2025 explaining the importance of Rocky Point, and the controversial nature of the development, its ownership, and approvals process.
“Which Way Tobago” asks, what type of tourism should Tobago seek to attract which best suits, showcases and sustains its natural attributes and safeguards its economic future?
“The Magic Woodland” explores the special nature of Rocky Point’s Back Bay, a vital turtle nesting sight
You can read about the importance and culture of surfing in Mt Irvine, and the alternative plans proposed by the Rocky Point Foundation, both written in 2022 for the Sunday Express in “Way Beyond Ordinary”.
“Wipeout” is the first article and investigates the concept for the Marriott at Rocky Point as first published by the developers Superior Hotels
The failure of the public consultation to address or share development plans, as required by the EM Act, and the vexed question about who really owns Rocky Point are discussed below.
“SOMETHING IS WRONG”
“Something is wrong”, said former Tobago Secretary for Tourism Stanley Beard at the Rocky Point public consultation, questioning how it was that land came to be leased to Superior Hotels for their Marriott-branded hotel and real estate project at Mt Irvine. (See sidebar/story)
It wasn’t the only thing that worried an anxious public attending the first meeting with the developers who wanted to transform their corner of paradise. Into what exactly they didn’t know, but they wanted to find out.
There was standing room only inside with parked cars jamming usually quiet roads outside. The hall in Buccoo was overflowing with people concerned about the scale and impact of such a large development on their peaceful, much treasured area of Mt Irvine.
The image of that peninsula covered by intense development, which was used by Superior Hotels and the THA to promote the project in 2021/22, and by the press ever since, was all anyone really knew about it.
Unless someone had trekked to the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) library HQ in St Clair, or navigated its multi-layered website, and dug out Certificate of Environmental Clearance (CEC) Application 6451/2022, no one would be any the wiser about what was planned for Rocky Point.
But the developers say they don’t know either.
“We haven’t started the project. We don’t know what kind of project we going to have,” claimed Superior Hotel’s John Aboud at the meeting.
He elaborated by explaining that nothing of any importance would be touched, not the coastline, the currents, the reef, marine habitat, not a stone in the water, not the beach, nor turtles (they had a plan to safeguard nesting sites), or the archeological site of Fort Monk.
Everyone was assured that the project was conceptual. “It was now beginning”, said Aboud.
This is not what the CEC application shows.
There are three detailed versions of the “Master Plan”, two modified at the request of the EMA for clarification, the last in November 2022.
These are plans for a very specific project, including a considerable real estate component, right down to detailing the steps leading to Back Bay. The Sunday Express asked Superior Hotels why they were not shown at the consultation.
We did not get a response.
Margarita Hinksoni of the Tobago Heritage Society stood at the microphone: “A lot of people here tonight are surprised about how little information there really was, I thought we were coming here to discuss particular plans.”
The Terms of Reference (TOR) drawn up by the EMA for the requirements needed for the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) are very specific and the cornerstone of the CEC process. Critics say the Buccoo consultation failed on these most important levels.
The TOR is clear that the information shared at the consultation must include all the project’s proposed designs and alternative actions. None were presented. There were no descriptions of an EIA process, or the precise location of the project and its components. There were no timelines, resources, and schedules associated with the activities, or any details on the studies to be undertaken.
The Express asked the developers: “Should you not hold a new public meeting to rectify these failings so the public can ask the necessary questions having all the information at hand instead of none, and not wait until after the EIA is completed as you indicated you would do?”
We received no response.
In another statement to the audience, Aboud said:
“We are on pause now waiting to see what happens with the approvals and once we have the approvals we will be able to design our facility in line with the approvals that we get.”
This suggested their detailed designs would only come after their CEC. The Express put it to Superior Hotels that this was putting the cart before the horse. Detailed designs are required for the EIA which informs the EMA whether a CEC should be granted or not.
There was no comment from the developer.
The Express asked the EMA about the apparent shortcomings in the developers’ consultation. They replied that the EMA “will hold the Applicant strictly to the requirements of the TOR; and upon completion of the EIA report the EMA and its valued Stakeholders will have the opportunity to thoroughly review the contents thereof.”
The land at Rocky Point leased by Evolving TecKnologies and Enterprise Development Company (Eteck) to Superior Hotels was awarded on the basis that at least a 200 room hotel be established there.
Superior Hotels, the winner of what John Aboud called a “vigorous selection process”, tacked on an extensive residential real estate component, shown in their earlier graphics and in their CEC application.
Concerns by many about this additional, much larger footprint on Rocky Point were dismissed by Aboud at the consultation: “People were accusing us of making this a residential project, blah, blah, blah . . . if we do not get an approval from the EMA the journey stops right there and we have a problem with Eteck.”
The transformation from untouched wilderness to what some see as no more than a gated community for the privileged lies at the heart of objections, the consultation showed, for many different ecological and cultural reasons.
“That piece of property has value far exceeding that of putting 200 hotel rooms on it. It means that piece of real estate has value to the born and bred Tobagonian . . .” emphasised Stanley Beard.
“Don’t get me wrong. I would love to see Marriott, but not on that site. It hurts me to see that (the project plans) being splashed about.”
CONSULTATION SNAPSHOTS
“We would like you to take your plans and move somewhere else. Just go anywhere else except this particular spot that we hold so dear”
“It seems that every third person who drowns in Tobago drowns off Rocky Point. How do you mitigate that?”
“I’ve not heard one member of the public lend any support to this project whatsoever, which to my mind means the proposal should be null and void because we don’t want it”
“Why is Back Bay so important to our sea turtle population? Because it is truly unspoilt, untouched, undiscovered and we love it because the turtles come back again and again”
“Can anybody here tell me the last time in the last decade that all the hotels, inns and Airbnbs were packed enough to need another hotel?”
“The trail to the surfing point through the land at Rocky Point has been traversed for half a century by surfers. It is spiritual . . . the wave speaks for our country, not just Tobago. To protect the environment here is to protect our olympic sport”
“Ospreys nest here . . . you should be using this area to educate people not building a gated community for the one percenters”
“We were told Mt Irvine was the one site we should be using to promote diving in Tobago because of the biodiversity of life there . . . it’s already under threat. . . improperly planned development of that point will put further stress on that ecosystem”
“We had a design for a project but it was an architectural project. We didn’t know then that we needed an EIA. Now we know.”
Who Owns Rocky Point?
Stanley Beard, Tobago House of Assembly (THA) MP for 12 years between 1984 to 2001, asked: “Who really and rightfully has ownership of Rocky Point?”
The question of ownership of that land has exercised opponents of the project, including the Rocky Point Foundation (RPF), and others, who have used the Freedom Of Information Act to get those details.
RPF, and Stanley Beard, who in his statements at the consultation questioned whether Eteck really owned Rocky Point, both cite the revised THA Act of 1996 as evidence the land belongs to the THA, thereby questioning the legality of eTeck leasing that land to Superior Hotels.
Section 54 of the Act deals specifically with property and land “vested in the State” which were transferred to the THA in 1996.
According to the objectors the most important question is whether that land, which was conveyed to the state agency the Industrial Development Company (IDC) in 1970, was actually State land which ought to have been conveyed to the THA in 1996.
They claim that the THA Act effectively vested these lands with the THA, which would nullify these agreements and proposals, but in 1970 that land was acquired by the IDC, which later became TIDCO which transferred it to eTeck in 2014 which has now leased it to Superior Hotels.
Stanley Beard told the Sunday Express it was his understanding that “Rocky Point is not the Central Government’s to dispose of at will without discussions inclusive of the THA, as stated in THA Act of 1996”.
The Sunday Express obtained copies of the 2014 Deed of conveyance between TIDCO and eTeck for the land at Rocky Point, the 2022 lease between eTeck and Superior Hotels, as well as the 2021 land valuation for eTeck, which some question as unrealistically low.
We shared these documents with two professional experts in land matters to seek their opinion on the legal complexities of past and present ownership of the Rocky Point lands.
Their interpretation is the land at Rocky Point is no longer State land belonging to the THA as that land was conveyed to the IDC in 1970 and therefore cannot be considered as still being “vested in the State” – unless the State retained some residual interest (which is sometimes the case in State transactions) as the original owner and ongoing Lessor.
However, there is a clear difference of opinion in relation to the accuracy of the 2021 valuation of the land undertaken by Jeremy Knott of Tobago Estates Agency Ltd. One expert accepts the valuation while the other does not.
The worth of 28 acres (however the EMA says the area is 12.89 ha or 31.85 acres) of what would be considered prime coastal real estate is put at $33 million. This equates to approximately $27 per sq.ft. Some opponents of the project believe this valuation to be too low.
Superior Hotels, a multi-million dollar company, has received a five year rent-free term in its 99 year lease from eTeck, or until the hotel is open for business, whichever comes first.
After that period, Superior will pay rent to eTeck of 1$ million + VAT per year for 15 years. Two years after that period ends the rent is 1$ million + VAT every two years for a total of 10 payments; and every year afterwards they pay a “peppercorn rent” of $100 per annum until the remainder of the 99 year lease. The total rent to eTeck will be $31.9 million + VAT, plus a premium of $400,000 + VAT.
However, it has been noted by our sources that $33 million today is worth far more than $33 million to be received over 99 years, an arrangement that clearly benefits the developer significantly from those delayed payment terms.
The Sunday Express asked eTeck to comment on the issues raised but received no response
1996 THA Act – Section 54
(a) all lands and other property of every kind located in Tobago vested in the State except the residences of the President and the Prime Minister are hereby vested in the Assembly in right of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago;
(b) all lands and other property of every kind, including things in action, vested in the former Assembly are hereby vested in the Assembly;
(c) all the rights, privileges and benefits and all the liabilities and obligations that, immediately before the coming into force of this Act, the former Assembly was entitled or subject to, are hereby transferred to and conferred or imposed upon the Assembly.”
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