fp Turks and Caicos

The Turks and Caicos Islands' Crown Land Allocation Register is now available to the public on the Internet showing which individuals and companies have received Crown land, plus online maps showing that little Crown land is left for development on Providenciales and Grand Turk.

Only 20 percent of the land on Providenciales — 2,377 acres — is Crown land, while 80 percent is already privately owned. On Grand Turk, only 10 percent of the land — 197 acres — is still Crown land.

The maps show Crown land that can be developed with planning approval, excluding protected areas and low lying areas prone to flooding.

“These maps clearly demonstrate that the supply of Crown land is almost exhausted and that the time has come to actively reconsider the best use for the heritage land that remains,” said Mary Harvey, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Environment and District Administration. “The maps show us that there will be opportunities to make further allocations of residential parcels within existing developments, but plot sizes will have to be smaller if we are to satisfy the anticipated demand.”

Tatum Clerveaux, deputy land commissioner with responsibility for the Crown Land Unit in Providenciales, said the maps dispel a common belief that there are large areas of Crown land remaining.

“People often believe that the undeveloped land they see is probably Crown land, and this gives a false impression of the situation,” she said. “These maps make it easier to see the true position and show that both Grand Turk and Providenciales now have significant private land holdings with only a relatively small amount of useful Crown land remaining.”

The 127-page Crown Land Allocation Register is a 1.8 mb PDF document that lists properties by island, block and parcel number, area in acres, names of individuals and companies, and the date of the transaction. It also says whether the land is was leased or freehold title granted, but it does not include sales price, at least not yet. That will be added in the future, Harvey said.

The Crown Land Policy of 2005 authorized the publication of all Crown land allocations, but that was never done until now.

The government warns that the register is not complete at this time.

“The Crown Land Allocation Register is a working document and will be updated as necessary,” said Jon Llewellyn, Crown Land advisor to the governor. “It is important to realise that, due to inconsistent record keeping in the past, many Crown land allocations may not be included in this first edition of the register.

“As resource and opportunity allows, other historical allocation records will be added to try to form as complete a record as possible. New allocations will also be added as they arise. Eventually, the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands will have a more accurate account of how their heritage land has been distributed over the years.”

The Crown Land Unit, part of the Ministry of Environment and District Administration, is asking for the public’s help in identifying errors and omissions in the register. People should send written notifications to the unit on Grand Turk in Government Square or to the unit on Provo at the Palmco Building, Leeward Highway.

The register is a work in progress. There are omissions and some features that can be confusing and give false impressions of transactions.

For example, being “granted” Crown land means receiving freehold title, not getting land for free. In many cases, people get Crown land under a lease purchase agreement for several years, then are granted the land at the end of the lease. In those cases, there would be two entries for one person for the same parcel — one recording the lease, and one recording the receipt of title, or grant.

Also, when more than one person receives the same piece of land, there is one entry for each person for the same piece of land.
When property is subdivided, all the transactions are recorded. If someone gets 10 acres of land, then subdivides it all, each property appears as a separate transaction, making it appear that the person or company received twice as much land as they actually did.

The register and Crown land maps are free if you have a computer and Internet access — which not everyone does — but the up-to-date maps you’ll need to locate properties by their parcel number are not free. The cheapest maps are $10 for site plans, while a full detailed map of Provo is the most expensive at $450.

An initial analysis of the register by the fp shows that the largest amounts of Crown land were distributed on islands other than Provo.

The largest Crown land transfer in the register occurred on Valentine’s Day 2008, when about 1,000 acres on Middle Caicos were granted to Juniper Hole Development Ltd. The property stretches from the Blue Horizon Resort to the northwestern tip of the island at Juniper Hole, including part of the National Trust’s Middle Caicos Crossing Place Trail.

On Joe Grant Cay, more than 600 acres was leased to Star Platinum Villas Ltd., Star Platinum Hotels Ltd. and Star Platinum Golf Ltd. in January 2009.

Between 2004 and 2006, several hundred acres on Water Cay were granted to Aquarius Development Ltd.

For more information and to get copies of the Crown Land Allocation Register and maps, go to www.tcilandinfo.tc.

TCI Land Info was developed through a cooperative agreement with the Cayman Islands Government’s Lands & Survey Department, leveraging the similar experience gained by the Cayman Islands during the development of their own land information systems and web portals over the past decade.