The Tribune

BY NEIL HARTNELL

TRIBUNE Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

THE “SUBSTANTIVE” verdict on the challenge to the $200m Rosewood Exuma’s key planning approval has been delayed after the project’s top opponent alleged “unfair and/or biased” treatment and demanded its appeal be reheard.

Attorneys for Turtlegrass Resort & Island Club, in an October 8, 2026, application, argued that its bid to overturn the neighbouring East Sampson Cay development’s initial site plan approval should by heard by a different Subdivision and Development Appeal Board panel.

This, it claims, is because the recently-completed September 16-17 hearing was “an infringement” of its “right to a fair hearing and to an independent and impartial tribunal”. The application, which was made even before the Appeal Board renders its verdict on the substantive challenge to Rosewood Exuma, cited several grounds to justify Turtlegrass’s claim that it was not treated fairly.

Chief among them is the alleged u-turn or “volte face” performed by the Board on July 22, 2026, when it reversed a previous decision by deciding that six “expert” reports commissioned by the Rosewood Exuma challenger could no longer be used as evidence in the appeal.

Turtlegrass is asserting that decision, signed by Dr Roosevelt Whyms, the Board’s deputy chairman, was “procedurally defective” as its own rules mandate that it be signed by at least two other members. It is alleging that a second version, signed by all five Board members to ensure compliance, only emerged two months later on September 16, 2026, which it branded “extremely odd”.

The developer, headed by Exuma resident and US investor, Bob Coughlin, is arguing that - besides “the startling change in position” over the admission of its evidence - the Board also justified its changed stance on a flawed rationale. It asserted that the request to submit the six reports was late, as Turtlegrass already had “ample time” to bring them forward given that the preliminary site plan approval had been granted on March 25, 2025, more than a year prior.

Its July 22, 2026, “volte face” thus argued that allowing the reports to be submitted 14 months later would be “unfair” to Miami-based Yntegra Group, Rosewood Exuma’s developer. However, Turtlegrass is countering that there was no undue delay in submitting its fresh evidence.

It alleges that the six reports are based new information about its $200m rival that has only recently been disclosed, with Rosewood Exuma’s configuration - and location of key assets - having changed significantly during that time.

And it is also claiming that Rayson Deleveaux, who was identified as a representative “of the Office of the Attorney General”, had “sat and retired with the Board” during its preliminary June 2026 hearings only to then appear as an attorney acting for the Director of Physical Planning in a related Supreme Court case - something Turtlegrass alleges creates the appearance of a “conflict of interest”.

It is also claiming that the Board agreed to the Director of Physical Planning having a “substantive role” in the appeal on September 16, 2026 - the morning of the actual hearing - which could have resulted in a legal “ambush” through not knowing the case the other side would present.

Turtlegrass appears to have entered uncharted legal territory with its move, as the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board said it now has to work out the procedure by which the application over alleged “bias” and unfairness, and demands for a fresh hearing before a different panel, can be heard and determined.

However, the Board confirmed the move has succeeded in delaying its ruling on the “substantive” challenge by Turtlegrass and its holding entity, Sampson Cay Retreat Ltd, to Rosewood Exuma’s preliminary site plan approval. Yet it also rejected Turtlegrass’s demand that all proceedings be “stayed”, or halted, until the recusal application is determined.

“The Board acknowledges receipt of the appellant's application dated October 8, 2026, seeking the recusal of the members of the panel hearing this appeal and a rehearing of the appeal before a differently constituted panel,” the Board said in an October 13 letter.

“The Board is considering the procedure by which the application will be determined, including the appellant's request that it be determined by a differently constituted panel. The Board will issue directions on the applicable procedure no later than 21 days, being November 3, 2026.

“Those directions will address the constitution of the panel that will determine the application, whether the application will be determined at a hearing, and the time for filing any submissions in response to it. Any party wishing to make written representations on procedure only, and not on the merits, may do so by October 27, 2026.”

The Board, though, said it will not halt or pause the existing timetable for both Turtlegrass, Yntegra and the Director of Physical Planning to make final written submissions and arguments over the substantive site plan approval battle.

“The Board has considered the appellant's request for a stay of all further steps,” it added. “That request is refused. The timetable agreed by the parties and directed by the Board on October 1, 2026, remains in place. Maintaining that timetable will preserve the orderly and timely progress of the proceedings in the interests of all parties.

“The filing of closing submissions will be without prejudice to the recusal application. No decision on the substantive appeal will be made until that application has been determined. The Board will give further directions on the conduct of the appeal after the application has been determined.”

A spokesman for Yntegra Group, the Rosewood Exuma developer, declined to comment on Turtlegrass’s latest legal manoeuvre when contacted by Tribune Business. However, one source familiar with the developer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it likely views its arch rival’s action as the legal equivalent of a “Hail Mary” with little chance of succeeding.

They added that the bid for a fresh Subdivision and Development Appeal Board hearing was just another step in Turtlegrass’s tactics to bog Rosewood Exuma’s progress down in time-consuming, costly litigation in the hope that financiers and the resort brand might abandon the project and/or the delays would force Yntegra to bow to its demands.

“It’s unfortunate but not unusual,” the source said of Turtlegrass’s latest legal action. “It’s designed to frustrate and delay, and frustrate and delay, and keep the ball rolling as long as they can. The only people who will lose out on this will be local Exumians and Bahamians if this project doesn’t start up.”

The location of Rosewood Exuma’s service dock, and potential impacts this and shipping may have on the environment and sea life in East Sampson Cay’s North Bay, are at the crux of the dispute between the two developers. Turtlegrass and Mr Coughlin are calling for the service dock to be relocated southwards so it will not disrupt their guests’ enjoyment of North Bay.

Turtlegrass, in its bid to secure a fresh site plan appeal hearing, said the Board had, at a May 11, 2026, preliminary hearing directed that its “experts’” reports be “filed and served” as evidence, with Yntegra given the opportunity to object to their content. These were filed and served on June 23 this year.

The Board then set down June 30 as the date on which Yntegra could voice its objections to the reports and their content, Turtlegrass alleged. The Rosewood Exuma developer, one day before that hearing, challenged admitting the reports “outside of the formal record of appeal” and argued that they had emerged “too late” to be relied upon.

Turtlegrass, though, alleged that the Board decided at the June 30 hearing to allow it to submit the extra evidence, but “reserved the question” over whether it would rely upon and consider it in deciding the appeal. Yntegra was also given time to decide if it needed to bring extra evidence.

However, that June 30 decision was subsequently overturned and reversed barely three weeks’ later. “On 22 July, 2026, the deputy chairman [Dr Whyms] of the Board issued a letter purporting to indicate that the Board had ‘determined that no additional reports at this stage of the hearing will be allowed’,” Turtlegrass alleged.

“Being a written determination of the Board, this was required to be ‘signed by the chairman and two other members of the Board’ (Rule 16(5) of the Appeal Board Rules). The purported determination, however, was signed only by the deputy chairman and was, therefore, procedurally defective.

“Moreover, the purported determination infringed the Appellant’s rights to an independent and impartial tribunal and a fair hearing,” Turtlegrass alleged. “The expert reports are obviously relevant to the appeal. Indeed, they are a central part of the Appellant’s case.

“Accordingly, their exclusion denied the appellant the opportunity and ability to advance its case before the Board; as the Board implicitly accepted given its determinations at the preliminary hearing and the June hearing. Despite amounting to an extraordinary volte face on the part of the Board, the determination does not even mention – let alone attempt to engage with - the Board’s earlier decisions.”

Turtlegrass argued that this was unfair because the Appeal Board gave no real explanation for why it reversed its decision, and nor was it given a chance to respond and challenge the move. And it disputed the rationale advanced by the Board - that it was late in submitting the reports given the 14 months that had elapsed since Rosewood Exuma’s initial site plan approval.

“While the Board is cognisant that both applications before the Town Planning Committee relate to the same site, it is satisfied that the appellant has had more than ample opportunity to have submit any additional reports while the matter was before the Town Planning Committee,” the Appeal Board wrote.

“In this particular appeal, having regard to the period between the initial application submitted to the Department of Physical Planning and the subsequent application, the Board is of the view that permitting the introduction of additional reports at this stage may be unfair to the respondents [Yntegra].

“Accordingly, the Board has determined that no additional reports at this stage of the hearing will be allowed.” However, Turtlegrass is arguing that much changed between its first appeal challenge to Rosewood Exuma’s initial site plan approval, which halted after the developer withdrew its application, and the second and current appeal, due to revisions to the project.

Asserting that its “expert” reports were responding to these changes, and thus were not late, Turtlegrass alleged it had moved “very quickly”. It added: “The first appeal concerned a separate, earlier grant of approval concerning a substantially different version of the proposed development.

“In particular, the earlier master plan depicted the service dock within the North Bay inlet, whereas the master plan for the current application depicted it at the eastern point of North Bay. The location and configuration of those marine works were material to the environmental issues requiring expert assessment.

“The first appeal could not therefore be treated as having afforded an equivalent opportunity to obtain and present expert evidence concerning the proposal before the Board.” Turtlegrass added that environmental impact assessments (EIAs) and environmental management plans (EMPs) have since emerged, along with certificates of environmental clearance (CEC) and infrastructure drawings.

Turtlegrass is also railing against the Appeal Board’s decision, taken on the morning of the substantive September 16, 2026, hearing to permit the Director of Physical Planning’s request - submitted exactly one week before - that it be allowed to have an active role in the appeal even though the Rosewood Exuma developer knew nothing about the case it planned to bring.

While this was resolved by the Director of Physical Planning supplying its written submission, Turtlegrass then alleged: “The appellant subsequently identified that Rayson Deleveaux, who had sat and retired with the Board at the June hearing, and who had been introduced to the parties as being present as a representative ‘of the Office of the Attorney General’, was acting as an attorney to the first respondent [Director of Physical Planning]” in separate Supreme Court proceedings involving Rosewood Exuma.

“Those instructions give rise to a patent conflict of interest and, consequently, amounted to the first respondent having had a representative present during, and privy to – and perhaps advising upon – the Board’s deliberations and decisions,” Turtlegrass alleged.

It is also objecting to comments made by Dr Whyms during the hearing which it claims favoured Rosewood Exuma, particularly where, during the evidence of Jeffery Clarke, Turtlegrass’s chief financial officer, where he said: “We do appreciate your contribution, sir...

“The Bahamas is a beautiful place and it’s our endeavour effort, each and every one of us here, to do the best we can to keep it. None of us want to come and do anything to bring destruction, not to our home land. We don’t want that, but at the same token, you know, I have a house.

“I have somewhere to live, all of us here have a house, and we have somewhere to live, but at the same token, we have children coming and grandchildren, and they are going to need a house, and they are going to need the opportunity to be able to afford themselves a house,” he added.

“We are, because some of our pockets are full now, then we should not prohibit the opportunity where they cannot make a living and have a house in this same Bahamas. That will be unfair to our people.”