Coakley International Chief Executive Officer, Shane Coakley recently announced that construction on the former Ginn Project in West Grand Bahama was set to begin shortly.
Those plans may be in jeopardy as a group has announced its intention to go to the Supreme Court to settle ownership of some of the land in the approximately 2,000 acre parcel.
Coakley told ZNS News, “there is one gentleman that is claiming to represent all these families and we tried to work with him. And we couldn’t find any findings that the stuff he was saying was actually true.”
A released statement said the families disputing the land “believe significant areas of the land consist of generational property whose ownership has never been fully or properly resolved.” A number of them claim to have deeds, conveyances and other documents.
According to Coakley the matter went to court and the gentleman lost more than one time. He said this court action is one of the reasons that the development has been stalled for so long. “It took seven years because you’ve got these lawsuits. You’ve got people claiming they own it. You’ve got one group,, Kingwood, that purchased the property from LRA without government approval and business in The Bahamas. They’re not recognized as the landowner. Government doesn’t recognize them as the landowner. They recognize LRA as the landowner. LRA said we sold to Kingwood but Kingwood didn’t get government approval when they did it and then Kingwood got denied government approval from some stuff they did in America,” he said.
The statement from the claimants also said, “the group further maintains that, in its view, no final or unencumbered transfer of title to any disputed parcels should occur until the court has fully considered and ruled upon the competing claims. They believe that resolving these matters through the judicial system is the most appropriate and transparent path.”
Coakley maintains that plans for the development of the property will move ahead. “If he proves that he owns this property I will compensate him but there is no proof and I-‘m not going to be extorted.”
