The Placencia Village Council is making an urgent plea to Deputy Prime Minister Cordel Hyde to help reclaim a key piece of land known as Placencia Point. Village Chairman Warren Garbutt says the council has spent the last ten years trying to acquire the land from the government, hoping to use it for major cultural events like Lobsterfest. But despite their efforts, the land was recently sold to a private company. Garbutt told us that the Ministry of Natural Resources has since entered talks with the new landowner to try and recover the property, but so far, those negotiations haven’t moved forward.
Warren Garbutt, Chairman, Placencia Village
“In 2022, if I’m not mistaken that we received a cease and desist letter from the new owners of the property. They had bought the property from a local resident and like I said, the transaction at Lands included a portion of the boardwalk that we were using. It’s not the entire property but a portion of what the council was using was included in that owner’s property. And since then we have been meeting with Lands, sending letters and even before. requesting the proper documentation title for this property for the village. But we weren’t granted it. We knew it was public property, it was the government’s property. So we applied, however, we weren’t granted it, we were granted just a license to utilize it. And it wasn’t until about 2022 when we found out that the land was actually entitled to the new owners. The area we’re talking about is what most of the leaves and the village know, or as the point. It’s the area we’ve been using for Lobster Fest since I think about 2017. And besides Lobster Fest for decades this property has been used for recreational use by local residents enjoying the beach for fishing, for swimming, just playing volleyball beach football events. And more recently like I said, starting around 2017, the council has been using it for our biggest fundraiser, the Lobster Fest which is held at the start of the lobster season every year. The villages in Belize has a very limited revenue source. We get our revenue from liquor licenses, and that’s basically it. That’s the only money that is guaranteed to villages countrywide, except for Caye Caulker. So Placencia, because of the nature of the village the cost for maintaining and keeping up with maintenance of the village, it is mandatory that we try to find ways in which we can raise funds.”
According to the Placencia Village Council, the point serves as an ideal location for activities as it is the only location not impacted by sargassum each year.
