Investors have been expressing an interest in leasing the Garapan Fishing Base, but the Department of Public Lands has said no to proposals, saying the site is reserved for community events.<\/p>\n
DPL Secretary Marianne Teregeyo said her agency has been repeatedly urged to lease the Garapan Fishing Base property. However, she said that even before her time as secretary, it has been common practice to reserve the area for the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fishing base is the community\u2019s recreational area,\u201d said Teregeyo, adding that the site hosts numerous events like the Thursday Market, Flame Tree Festival, and recently the Taste of Marianas.<\/p>\n
\u201cInvestors have been coming in with interests in the area and we haven\u2019t entertained them because the fishing base is a public resource; that\u2019s where the community gathers,\u201d she said, indicating that DPL secretaries before her have consistently declined investment offers.<\/p>\n
According to Teregeyo, it is a \u201cmatter of policy\u201d to not entertain developments at the Garapan Fishing Base because of the lack of a land use plan to solidify \u201cactual public resource areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
A land use plan is a master inventory of all public lands, including their types, usages, and zoning prohibitions. The land use plan also indicates ideal sites for homesteads, community recreational sites, and business development.<\/p>\n
The land use plan includes Saipan, Rota, Tinian, and the Northern Islands but excludes Uracas, Maug, and Asuncion as these are protected by the CNMI Constitution.<\/p>\n
Teregeyo said DPL is \u201cpushing back [investors] until the plan is in place,\u201d without expounding whether DPL is open to negotiations or not. She added that with community input, the plan would \u201cidentify if the fishing base [would be locked in] as a public resource.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saipan Tribune learned last Wednesday that DPL has awarded SSFM CNMI, LLC a contract to spearhead the land use plan development project. Teregeyo claimed that prior to the awarding, back-to-back negotiations between SSFM and DPL occurred for two months before DPL felt comfortable with their offer.<\/p>\n
Teregeyo told Saipan Tribune that a land use plan may be in place after a year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Investors have been expressing an interest in leasing the Garapan Fishing Base, but the Department…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[175,281,38,2818],"class_list":["post-256704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-dpl","tag-garapan-fishing-base","tag-saipan-tribune","tag-ssfm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}