Min. Gumbs: Votes cannot keep blocking tough decisions on development and traffic

GREAT BAY--Minister of VROMI Patrice Gumbs had fairly straight forward and blunt personal opinion on Wednesday: if leaders campaign on traffic congestion and infrastructure failures, but refuse to take the steps needed to address them because those steps may cost votes, then the same unresolved issues will continue dominating elections for years to come.

In other words, St. Maarten cannot afford to keep making popular decisions at the expense of long-term sustainability, warning that the country’s infrastructure crisis will only deepen unless government is prepared to take tougher, politically unpopular action.

That includes ongoing discussions within the Council of Ministers about a possible moratorium on vehicles, a measure he suggested is difficult for politicians to embrace when votes are too often prioritized over the country’s future. Against that backdrop, Gumbs also made clear that he does not support simply freezing development, arguing instead for a stricter and more balanced model of growth.

In that sense, Gumbs’ position is not that development should stop, but that the era of unchecked, low-accountability development should.

Responding to questions in the Council of Minister's Press Briefing about whether development should be paused until infrastructure catches up, Gumbs acknowledged what many residents already see plainly: roads, drainage, housing, and other public systems have not kept pace with the rapid scale of construction in recent years. He agreed that the country has fallen behind, but said an outright stop on development is not the answer.

For Gumbs, the issue is more complicated than a simple call to pause building. While criticism is often directed squarely at government, he said private sector demand and the pace of private construction are central to the problem as well. Government, he noted, does not build condominiums or private developments, but it is left to contend with the impact those projects have on public infrastructure, neighborhoods, and the wider social fabric.

He also pushed back against the idea that government alone should absorb the consequences of private development without requiring anything in return. In his view, St. Maarten has allowed too much growth to take place without enough control, too often in ways that serve short-term financial interests while leaving the public to carry the long-term burden.

Gumbs said that dynamic is part of what has created the current imbalance: a country where development continues, but the supporting systems needed to sustain it lag further behind. Roads deteriorate, drainage remains inadequate, traffic intensifies, and land and housing costs continue to climb, all while public frustration grows.

Rather than shutting development down, the Minister said his ministry is working toward a framework that would force larger developments to contribute more directly to the country’s needs. That means moving away from a model in which developers build, profit, and walk away, while government and the public are left to manage the strain.

Under the kind of approach he envisions, larger projects would be expected to help offset their impact through contributions to roads, sidewalks, drainage, affordable housing, and other forms of infrastructure. For Gumbs, this is not just about construction standards, it is about fairness and sustainability.

He argued that infrastructure must be understood in broader terms than roads alone. In his view, infrastructure also includes the country’s social environment, particularly access to housing and the broader quality of life for residents. As more high-end condos and large-scale projects are built, he said, the price of land and housing continues to rise, making it harder for ordinary people to afford a home.

That, he suggested, is where the real policy failure begins to show itself. If development is allowed to continue unchecked, the country may benefit from short-term economic activity, but future generations could end up shut out of the very communities now being built. The result would be a model of growth that enriches the present while eroding the future.

Gumbs made it clear that he is not dismissing the economic importance of construction. On the contrary, he acknowledged that many people in St. Maarten earn a living in the construction sector and that there is a real public interest tied to development. But he warned that this reality cannot be used as an excuse to ignore the larger consequences of how the country is building.

He said St. Maarten must move past what he described as short-sighted thinking, where the focus remains on immediate profits without enough regard for long-term national outcomes. A project may generate money today, he indicated, but that does little good if the next generation is left with overburdened infrastructure, worsening congestion, and housing they can no longer afford.

That same long-term lens, Gumbs suggested, is what is missing from other politically sensitive areas now under discussion, including traffic and vehicle growth. He disclosed that the Council of Ministers is having serious discussions about measures such as a possible moratorium on vehicles, which would almost certainly be controversial. But in his view, avoiding difficult decisions simply because they are unpopular is exactly how governments end up recycling the same problems year after year.

He tied that concern directly to broader questions of environmental and fiscal fairness. Among the policy issues he raised was the structure of road taxation, questioning why owners of heavier, higher-emission vehicles should pay the same as owners of much smaller, lighter cars. In his view, that kind of system makes little sense in a country already struggling with road wear, congestion, and environmental strain.

Those who place a greater burden on infrastructure and air quality, he argued, should also contribute more toward fixing those problems. Gumbs noted that air quality concerns in St. Maarten are already documented and should no longer be treated as an abstract issue disconnected from development and transportation policy.

He applied the same reasoning to casino-related development, saying such sectors should not automatically be treated as negative, but should instead be judged by whether they are properly regulated and whether existing rules are actually enforced. For him, the core issue is not simply whether something is allowed to exist, but whether the country has the discipline and policy structure to manage it responsibly.

At the center of all of this is what Gumbs described as a question of capacity. St. Maarten, he suggested, has reached a point where government must honestly assess what the country can physically, socially, and environmentally sustain. He revealed that VROMI has been working for more than a year on capacity studies that are now being formalized, with the goal of helping guide future decisions on development, infrastructure, and national planning.

That work, he said, is part of a broader shift away from reactive governance and toward a more controlled, policy-driven approach. Instead of responding to problems only after they become visible crises, the Ministry wants to put mechanisms in place that can better manage growth before the damage is done.

To that end, Gumbs confirmed that VROMI is already working on policy connected to the permitting process, signaling that these ideas are intended to become more than personal opinion or political commentary. The objective is to translate them into enforceable rules that can shape how development moves forward.

His broader argument was unmistakable: St. Maarten does not need symbolic gestures or simplistic slogans about stopping development. What it needs is political courage, stronger regulation, and a willingness to make unpopular decisions in the interest of a more sustainable future.

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