2007-11-13 09:58:34

by Adrian Batten

Raffles Hotels and Resorts announced it is to manage a new luxury resort in Bali’s Bukit Peninsula called Raffles Amartha, which is expected to open in 2010. Raffles is teaming up with owner Asia Pasifik Properti, the property and hotel arm of Rekso Group, the Indonesian tea and retail conglomerate.

The new project will comprise some 90 luxurious villas, featuring 25 cliff-top Raffles Residences for sale to private owners. Spread over 11 hectares, the property is to be built in the style of a classical Javanese-Hindu water garden and palace. When completed, the resort will have several restaurants and a spa, with a spectacular cliff-top wedding pavilion.

The new property will adjoin the soon-to-be completed 18-hole golf course designed by Ronald Fream and is part of the once-stalled and still-controversial Pecatu Indah development. With members expected to pay up to US$17,000 to join Bali’s latest golf club, the Bali Post newspaper reported a number of high-profile charter members of the club.

In addition to Raffles Amartha and the new golf course by Intra Golflink Resorts, Westin will be constructing a five-star hotel with Luminary Wira Bhakti while Panorama Development Utama is developing exclusive villas and a hotel.

The cliff-top property overlooks the famed surfers’ beach, Dreamland. Klapa New Kuta Beach will develop beachside entertainment centres, while Cupumanik Griya Permai will construct residential areas.

Construction of the 400-hectare Pecatu Indah project began in 1998 and was halted shortly after, due to the political and financial disruptions of the period. While earlier controversies relating to the original acquisition of such a large tract of land on the arid Bukit Peninsula appear not to be an immediate issue, the project again ran into problems last November over the question of valid permits, water shortage and whether Bali actually needed another under-utilised golf course.

Development was then halted briefly earlier this year, while the issue of permits allegedly issued back in 1995 by the then and since discredited Bali Governor, I.B. Oka, was sorted.

Further objections have been raised by surfers and lovers of Dreamland Beach, not to mention the various unlicensed businesses, restaurants and homestays that have sprung up at the prospect of what is being billed by the developers, in a bizarre stretch of the imagination, as the ‘New Kuta Beach’. These informal establishments now face closure or enforced re-location to standardised premises within the beachside development.

While the possibility of further hitches along the way remains for this and other mega-developments on the Bukit, it seems that nothing will halt for long the peninsula’s inexorable inflow of villa/resort investment and development. The last 12 months have seen a succession of major luxury developments opening or announced, starting with the Bulgari and including Alila Uluwatu, St Regis, Outrigger and Banyan Tree.

More are in the pipeline, not to mention numerous designer state-of-the-art homes built by private individuals. Bali itself is on a roll, with tourists flooding back into Bali in greater numbers than ever before, and spending more than ever before. Bali is trading up big time.

Goodbye Kuta, Hello Bukit ... or was that New Kuta? Only time will tell, but on the west and south Bukit, we may well be looking at the early stages of a Southeast Asian Côte D’Azur. Watch this space for nearby marina developments.

Source: http://www.property-report.com

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