Ministry fails to submit building permit for Kennedy Grove
The building permit for the controversial Kennedy Grove Housing Development was not presented when the Access to Information (ATI) Tribunal met on Monday.
Representatives from the Ministry of Water and Housing, co-developer of the controversial housing scheme, which was taken before the ATI Tribunal by the Jamaica Environment Trust (JET) for failing to submit reports pertaining to the October 2005 flooding of Kennedy Grove, said that the building permit was not in its possession. It was presumed to be in the possession of the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA).
However, members of the Tribunal said the ministry, as co-developer of the development, and with the other developer – KID Development Company Limited – now out of business, it was legally required to possess all the relevant permits and documents relating to the development.
The ministry’s representatives then gave their undertaking to acquire the building permit for the perusal of the Tribunal, but this drew even more criticism as the Tribunal members questioned whether the permit actually existed.
“As co-developer, the Ministry of Water and Housing is supposed to have a [building] permit. If you say don’t have the permit then we have to wonder if one exists,” said John Maxwell, a member of the Tribunal.
The absence of the permit also prompted representatives from JET to question whether the scheme was built after the ministry obtained the building permit to carry out the development.
As the hearing progressed, the ministry representatives also accepted that proper procedure was not followed in facilitating the delivery of the reports requested by JET, which caused the documents requested not to be turned over in the required time. The documents, the representatives said, would be sought after and made available to the Tribunal and JET within a month.
Among the documents requested by JET were:
. the hydrological study of the Kennedy Grove development;
. cost/benefit analysis of the development;
. the preliminary copy of the engineering feasibility report;
. the environmental impact assessment of the Kennedy Grove area;
. a copy of the joint venture agreement between the Ministry of Water and Housing and KID Development Company Limited;
. the order to construct the development under the Housing Act; and
. the Clarendon Parish Council’s approval of the development.
A timeline for the development of the Kennedy Grove Housing Scheme showed that KID Development Company Limited was contracted to prepare a development plan for Clarendon, and that in May 1994, the company submitted a proposal for development of land owned by the Ministry of Housing.
Three years later, in May 1997, the proposal went to Cabinet for approval and for the development to be declared under the Housing Act.
In 1999, the attorney-general approved the agreement for the development, and Cabinet subsequently gave its endorsement on July 27 of that year.
The joint venture agreement was signed in August 1999 and the project commenced that September. It took 18 months for the completion of the project in February 2001.
However, since 2002 the Kennedy Grove Area has been ravaged by a series of floods, occurring during the rainy seasons, and prompting much public outcry about the construction of the housing development.