Slowing a Growth Boom to Island Time

In a rare collective pause for reflection, the people of this prosperous mid-Atlantic island are debating whether they want to bust their own boom.

The envy of most nations, with per capita gross domestic product of $36,000 and 13,000 offshore businesses spending $1.5 billion a year, Bermuda’s 65,000 people are facing the possibility -- some call it a threat -- of becoming another Hong Kong.

Rents and living expenses here already rival those in Hong Kong, a former British colony that reverted to China six years ago. Single-family homes and low-rise public buildings remain the rule, but developers are pushing a raft of multi-story apartment, condominium and office complexes. The median house price is almost $1.3 million.

“There’s been a tremendous loss of open space and people have to decide now, does it make sense to focus development in Hamilton and go high-rise?” said Ross Andrews, who was sent by Britain to coordinate a sustainable development project for the island, which is a British overseas territory. “If Bermuda wants to be Manhattan in the sea, that can be done, as long as Bermudians recognize the trade-offs,” he said.

The arrival last year of the island’s first condos and increasing strains on water, power and waste management have spurred a virtual building freeze while Bermudians decide how much more growth the 21-square-mile island -- about the size of Pasadena -- can withstand.

Town hall-style meetings are being conducted to poll communities on their druthers and a statistical profile and questionnaire have been delivered to all 25,000 households.

The profile offers a sobering look at what has happened to this once-bucolic island:

* Bermuda is one of the world’s most densely populated territories, with an average of about 3,100 people per square mile.

* Water use that was seven gallons daily per person in the 1960s is now 30 gallons each and rising.

* The volume of per capita waste exceeds that of New York.

* There are 46,000 vehicles today, about 20% of which arrived in the last five years.

“Finally, the government is looking at the island and deciding, ‘Oh boy, we’re really having digestive problems. We’re so overcrowded we’re busting at the seams,’ ” said Erin Moran, a founding member of the Greenrock environmental group lobbying for moderation.

Until Hurricane Franklin grazed the island last month and refilled residential cisterns, Bermuda had been suffering its worst drought since 1949. The six-week dry spell coincided with breakdowns at desalination plants, forcing authorities to ship in 2.5 million gallons of the vital commodity by tanker for the first time in 15 years.

Worsening the situation was a weeklong collapse of the electrical system, highlighting the mounting burdens of concurrent booms in cruise-ship tourism and international business.

With so little land surface and not a river or lake on the island, Bermuda is dependent on rainwater, and it now consumes more than it collects. Desalination plants have helped keep up with demand, including weekly visits by seven mammoth cruise ships. But the plants consume increasing amounts of electricity that has to be produced by burning ever more expensive fossil fuels.

“Many people are coming to the island from the United States who are used to having two cars and taking 30-minute showers,” said Moran, an acupuncturist trained in Seattle. “They’re bringing their previous lifestyle and they just can’t do that here.”

Waste, growing 3% to 4% per capita a year, has been dealt with over the decades by burning trash, compressing metal and crushing glass, then using the compacted solids for landfill or as a base for road paving. But with 130 miles of roadway now linking every enclave on the island, there’s no room for extension. Refuse must be exported, at skyrocketing expense even for this wealthy public.

Victims of their own affluence, Bermudians have had to import foreign labor for the thriving service industries catering to 500,000 tourists a year. With less than 5% unemployment, locals eschew blue-collar jobs in favor of professional and creative opportunities growing with the global business market. About one fourth of the population now consists of guest workers, most from Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.

“I go out to dinner sometimes now and I can’t even tell what language is being spoken,” Clevelyn Crichlow, a retired school administrator, complained at a meeting with community development officials. He echoed the concerns of many older Bermudians that the island’s rapid growth was being fueled by “the greed factor.”

A fishhook-shaped island discovered by a Spaniard in 1503, Bermuda was ignored by Spain for more than a century for its lack of fresh water. It wasn’t populated until a British ship was wrecked on its shores in 1609 and the commander left a couple of sailors to stake a claim for Britain.

Portuguese farmers from the Azores, fishermen from the North Atlantic and vacationing nouveaux riches industrialists from New York and New England accounted for the island’s development until the 1980s. As tourism waned, corporate America moved into vacated hotel and resort complexes, taking advantage of Bermuda’s tax-exempt status. The business migration accelerated after the Sept. 11 attacks, when dozens of banking and insurance companies lost their World Trade Center offices.

Some steps have been taken to reduce consumption and pollution. Importers can bring in only energy-efficient appliances. Electric cars are exempt from duties. Solar- and wind-energy production are being studied and encouraged, government officials say.

But with 10,000 cars driving into Hamilton in a single hour each day and little effort at emissions control or recycling, even an island washed by sea breezes faces environmental degradation.

“We have localized pockets of air quality problems,” said Thomas Sleeter, head of the Department of Environmental Protection. Although he shares concerns that too much expansion could overwhelm the island, he points out that Bermuda still retains its natural beauty and small-town feel, providing an unusual opportunity for a community to decide development issues before events overtake it.

Environmentalists, developers, business and community groups all have their own panels assessing continued expansion. Andrews expects the discussions to converge into a common vision for Bermuda’s future by the end of the year.

He senses, though, that Bermudians are more committed to preserving their remote island culture than succumbing to runaway growth and construction. Those lending their voices to public debates and government hearings talk more about a clean environment, security and friendly social relations than the outlook for further income infusions, he said.

“At the end of the day,” said Andrews, “quality of life trumps the standard of living.”

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Bermuda facts

Bermuda is a wealthy British overseas territory about the same size as Pasadena.

Population: 65,365

Median age: 39.76 yrs.

Life expectancy at birth: 77.79 yrs.

GDP: $2.33 billion

GDP per capita: $36,000

Unemployment rate: 5%

Population below poverty line: 19%

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Source: CIA Factbook