Permission to Survey Issued for Santa Cruz Village Council

Since 2017 the Santa Cruz Village Council in the south has been fighting to complete its land expansion project. The council wants to retain control of the project and keep it out of the hands of U.D.P. Standard Bearer for Stann Creek West Ivan Williams.  Monies have been collected, lots identified and the Land Commissioner is aware of the project. Six-hundred and sixty-three lots have been identified and residents from the village and those from Placencia and Seine Bight say they have been paying monies for the parcels of land. The project has yet to be completed even though the council has been requesting the assistance of Commissioner Wilbert Vallejos.  It’s been an uphill battle for the village council and over the weekend the chairman received reports that Williams was in the village reportedly informing villagers that he has received permission to survey the land. So we asked Vallejos about it today. 

Wilbert Vallejos, Commissioner of Lands and Surveys

“I can’t give any Ivan Williams any permission to survey. If a permission to survey will be issued it will be issued for the community of Santa Cruz. Now if Ivan Williams has a copy of that permission that is a different story. Santa Cruz is a very unique situation and we have been trying to help them or resolve their issues but it has not been forthcoming. What has happened there is that previous village councils have on their own and gone ahead collected survey monies from individuals and these individuals have paid their survey money. Now if you are to pay your survey monies, whoever collected from you is giving you a legitimate expectation that you are to get something in return. Now the village has change once or twice and they have not been, well the new the village council has come to the department to ask for help. Our condition for us to help is for them to come clean to us and we’ve asked them one thing and one thing alone the information of who all has paid survey cost in Santa Cruz because we want to know that when the survey is finished that those are the people who are going to be given the first preference as oppose to them making a different list, different people on the list and creating chaos. Unfortunately the information has not been forthcoming to us and so we are unable to get in and try to help.”

Wilbert Vallejos

Hipolito Novelo

“So no permission to survey has been given to anyone?”

Wilbert Vallejos

“Permission to survey has been given for the Santa Cruz Village Council. That is despite the fact that they have not given us the information that we as asking. It is being asked in the best interest of the people of Santa Cruz.”