The Central Planning Authority has approved an application by Health City Cayman Islands to clear and fill a 3.44 acre piece of land located off the Esterley Tibbetts roundabout to the South of Cayman International School, on Minerva Drive. Permission to submit the application was given by Cayman Shores Development Ltd (CSDL).
In an email announcement to local media, Shomari Scott, Chief Business Officer at Health City, described his excitement at progress towards a “comprehensive, highly specialized hospital that will reduce and, in some cases, eliminate the need for traveling off island” which happens when services are not available locally.
Currently the Camana Bay site is zoned ‘Low Density Residential’ and the CPA meeting agenda stated that the applicant letter indicated developers (HCCI) are currently working with their design team for a new hospital at the site, which will be submitted at a later date. Consequently, the timing of the clear and fill application needed to be considered and the Authority “needs to determine if it is premature to clear and fill the land prior to an application for a hospital being submitted and considered for approval,” the CPA agenda stated.
Following that consideration, the CPA approved the application.
Also speaking about the proposed new hospital, Dr. Binoy Chattuparambil, Clinical Director at Health City, said that the hospital’s radiotherapy services would be available within nine months of the ground-breaking, with the completion of the rest of the facility and a full suite of services following a few months later. “We estimate the full 70,000 square foot expansion to take 12 to 18 months to complete,” he went on to say.
The development will need to pass through multiple stages of planning, including Building Control Unit analysis and approval, a process that can take many months and is just one stage of the multistage process. Although the announcement predicted that site clearance would commence on 22nd June, it is not clear from the announcement when the clock starts on the above timeline estimates, other than anchoring them to ground-breaking, which due to the planning process, is likely to be many months away. Given that designs have not yet been submitted, as indicated in the CPA agenda, it is clear that the major portion of the planning and BCU process is still to be undertaken and therefore services are unlikely to be open until 2023.
Given the importance of these types of services to the Cayman Islands, we have reached out to Health City to clarify this so that we can better inform patients of when they may be able to access services.
