No rush to approve building permits within 60 days, says Kingston mayor
KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Mayor of the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) Senator Delroy Williams has indicated that the municipality is not in a rush to bring the turnaround time for the approval of building permits below 60 days.
Williams stated that 90 per cent of all building applications in 2016 were processed within the 90 days prescribed and 100 per cent were processed within the given time for the first quarter of 2017.“We are not in any particular rush to lower the time period and it is our view that a 60-to-90-day turnaround time is reasonable. Proper investigations and inspections must be done to protect the environment and the people of Kingston and St Andrew;” Williams said.The mayor indicated that it will be a detriment to the city if in an attempt to have a speedy turnover the KSAMC puts the safety and lives of people at risk.“With the history of Kingston being implicated by earthquakes and the magnitude of some of the projects being submitted we have a responsibility to ensure that all applications submitted are up to code to prevent irreparable damage and long term problems. Ninety days may just save thousands of lives;” the mayor stated.Williams also cautioned that over the last few years the country has experienced unprecedented flooding with the most recent being the flooding in Clarendon a few weeks ago. Occurrences like these underscore the importance of the municipality and agencies such as National Environment Planning Agency doing their due diligence to ensure that developments when approved do not compromise the safety of residents after completed.He went on to state that a contributing factor towards the delay in processing several applications has been that several persons have not been completing the applications properly.