St. Maarten Private Eye

High water was/is measured by the Kaadasster office and are based on known benchmarks around the island. The actual size of a beach now or no beach now has little to do with where the boubdary was set.
High Tide or high water mark is a bit misleading as this point is an identifiable point and is irrelevant what may actually be there now. The Kaadasster office is the only one that can certify a measurement.
As it relates to Westin somewhere in the planning permit it is stated that Roy acknowledged giving up a portion of the beach to the resort. This goes completely against the goverments beach policy among others and disregarded every advice that he received from the approriate foundations and departments.

I do not know if the person who wrote measurements is correct. Did the Kadaster office ever measure the high water line at Dawn Beach?
I have not seen the part in the planning permit where it states that Roy gave up a part of the beach to the hotel, but I am sure that Flipper can look to see if it is in documentation. Is the beach give away in the first or second planning permit?
Remember that the two planning permits differed which I think is illegal. The first had the pond remaining as advice from VROM, the second had the pond removed and relocated. The pond never relocated, it was removed and a man made detention water tank up a hill was built with a culvert leading directly to the beach. The beach visitors can still see the outflow and end of the culvert on the beach.
One day for sure this culvert will be broken down by high waves and the sea water will back up into that culvert. The pool is also on the public beach, whatever Marlin gave away I am not sure but anyone who knew the old Dawn beach will see clearly that the pool is too close to the waters edge.
Now, remember that all objectees had to appear before the committee of experts. This committee of experts was a committee that R.Marlin himself appointed. The Committee of experts after listening and evaluating the Dawn Beach planning permits, gave negative advice for this planning permit to go ahead as is.
What did Roy and the EXCO do? EXCO turned down the advice. The expert committee has engineers and other experts in the field, and Roy and his EXCO team made up of high school graduates and lowly high school (ETAO) actors believe their advice is the best. To make matters worse, when the Dawn Beach planning permit was the agenda point in the Island Council, the opposition National Alliance party voted along with the DP for the project to be approved as is.
The opposition did not quite understand or they refuse to understand that the agenda point was to send the planning permit back for amendments. The only IC member who understood the topic and the agenda point was Ms. Gracita Arrindell. She later was accussed by both parties of being against development. Same as they do with all environmentailsts when we object to governments very poor abillity with handling building and planning permits and the (non) inspection of those projects.

Yours respectfully, an active person who has been keeping an eye on Dawn beach, WESTIN.

The coastal setback is given to be 45 meters for this project. Normal coastal setback is 50 meters. Why was five meters of domain land given to a private developer?
There are a number of competent surveyors on the island that can get the benchmarks from Kaadaster to begin laying out projects. They are reputable and will put points where they belong.
What happens after is anyones guess.