SPANISH WELLS, ELEUTHERA — Spanish Wells Commonage Committee Chairman Ivanhoe Sweeting yesterday raised concern over how licenses are being approved for people residing on the Blackwoods Commonage land.
“Now we’ve found out that there are people who are out there who have business licenses to operate businesses on the land that they do not own, out of structures that were built illegally without permits,” he said.
Over the past few years, the Spanish Wells Commonage Committee has been advocating for the government to take action on what they’ve observed as illegal residences on their generational commonage land. They told Eyewitness News that an estimated 400 structures are on the land and that most of them are currently occupied.
“If it was me tried that right now, if I went and tried building another home in my yard I would be shut down immediately the police would be to me and I would be shut down so why is it not the same thing for them where is this double standard coming from?”
Last week the committee sent out letters to various entities including the Island Administrator, District Council, and Bahamas Power and Light for a one-year ban on any building in Blackwoods.
In response to Haitian pastors who said that the majority of people living in the area work in Spanish Wells, Sweeting said he believes their assertions are incorrect.
”We go over there pretty much every week and the amount of people we see over there that we never have seen in our life, we don’t know who they are, we never see them on Spanish Wells working; and there are a good many now that work for people that came here from Abaco and Nassau and are foreigners that have built homes here that are working over here, so they still don’t qualify as being able to be on the commonage land.”
Sweeting added that for people to legally reside on commonage land, they would need to get permission from the owners, and the commission president confirmed that permission was not granted to the vast majority of people living there and claimed that furthermore, it is unclear how they got business licenses to operate in the area approved without work permits.
”Any of them that does not work for somebody in Spanish Wells that is a registered commoner or can become a registered commoner needs to get off the land because nobody can give them any legitimate claim or position to be on the land”
Sweeting said their main goal is to demolish all housing built in Blackwoods without permits after authorities would have looked into the situation. He said that he also understands that everyone needs a roof over their head, but people should not be living in the country without any proper legal documents either.
“I understand people need somewhere to live but you can’t just allow people to squat and take any land everybody. What next to stop them from coming to Spanish Wells while I’m out to walk in my house and tell me I can’t come back in yet. It’s not different.
”They don’t own that land and they don’t own this land they’re taking land that they don’t own so what’s the stop them from combing her and walking in somebody’s house and just taking it and saying you can’t come back in it.
”The ones that do work for people here that are registered commoners or can become registered commoners, if we can get the ones removed, that do not work for anybody who has legitimate claim to the land, then we can go to every commoner or any person who can become a registered commoner and say, listen you have so and so living in Backwoods, the house they are living in is unsafe they cannot be living in these conditions, you need to provide proper housing for these people and then we can hold them accountable.”
