The territory’s top land-use experts recommended against a controversial proposal to rezone more than 15 acres of Beeston Hill green space to allow for commercial use, according to legislative files uploaded Wednesday.

Plans to build townhouse-style condos on the property could be accomplished within its current zoning, according to the report issued Tuesday by the Department of Planning and Natural Resources Division of Comprehensive and Coastal Zone Planning.

The property owner, Atta Misbeh, had sought to change the zoning to B-3, allowing for a strip mall in 2022. Despite DPNR’s recommendation against rezoning, the Legislature approved the request, which was vetoed by Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. in 2023.

Now, Misbeh has promised not to build commercial property on the land currently zoned low-density residential.

In his recent rezoning bid, Misbeh hired former senator Alicia Barnes to address continued neighborhood concerns about the proposed project. Barnes insisted the development plan called only for 24 residential units to help alleviate the territory’s housing shortage.

At least 32 people living in and around the Beeston Hill area — including former Delegate to Congress Donna Christiansen and Virgin Islands Energy Office Director Kyle Fleming — wrote letters to DPNR objecting to the proposed development after a hearing in September, many asking why a residential development would need a zoning change from R-1 to B-2.

Barnes and Mesbeh said B-2 zoning would allow for easier financing as lenders were more apt to invest in land zoned for commercial use. An independent appraiser agreed, writing to DPNR saying B-2 property sold at a higher value than R-1.

DPNR officials said how projects were financed was immaterial to rezoning considerations:

“First, rezoning decisions should be based on community land-use planning and not individual financial needs, having more development options, or marketplace value. A lender’s decision to grant a loan depends on the property’s existing zoning and compliance with regulations, as well as other financial factors. It would not be simply on whether a rezoning is granted. Planning and zoning decisions not governed by a comprehensive planning approach often have unintended consequences,” the Division of Comprehensive and Coastal Zone Planning wrote in its report.

Letters opposing the project had the same position: Financing shouldn’t drive zoning changes.

Many of the letter writers also objected to Barnes painting concerned residents as selfish, entitled, and “tone deaf” to the needs of would-be homeowners priced out of the USVI’s tight housing market. They said Barnes had taken her name-calling to the airwaves as well, “slinging mud” on the radio and podcasts, as one letter writer put it. It was a different sort of name-calling than when the zoning issue was before the Legislature in 2022. Senators at that meeting suggested property owners in the area were mostly snowbirds from the mainland.

One Beeston Hill resident writing in opposition to the recent rezoning bid objected to Barnes’s suggestion that people in the area — resting on generational, inherited wealth — were depriving future generations of a place to live

Barry Guilbeau wrote to suggest framing the issue as alleviating the housing crunch was disingenuous.

“In 1995, I moved to St. Croix as a young adult with nothing. From the moment I arrived, I felt at home, and over the years I have built both my life and my community here,” Guilbeau wrote. “As Ms. Barnes reminded us, we each have a duty to provide not only for ourselves, but also for our community. That duty includes creating real pathways for young Virgin Islanders to return home, which requires preserving land for affordable residential development. Rezoning Parcel 6a Beeston Hill from R-1 (residential) to B-2 (business) directly undermines this goal.”

Rezoning the land would instantly increase its value, he wrote, reducing the likelihood of affordable housing being built there.

“My opposition comes as a long time resident of St. Croix and a motivated member of the community,” Guilbeau wrote. “I believe we must work together to use the tools already in place to support development while protecting the island we all love.”

Although an official agenda had not been set as of press time Wednesday, the Senate would likely consider the rezoning Oct. 29