Susan Gordon, Staff Reporter
DEVELOPERS SAY a slowdown in the approval process for their real estate plans is costing them time and retarding the island's real estate sector.
They say that unless they personally monitor their building or subdivision plans at the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) and the corresponding agencies, their wait for approval on these plans could take much longer than the 90 days promised.
Although construction is not solely dependent on NEPA's approval, there is no telling how many of the 121 residential development applications received in 2005 by the agency will be approved in time for construction to take place this year.
APPLICATION PROCESS
Manager for the applications programme at NEPA, Frances Blair, told Wednesday Business that the application process should take an average of 90 days. She said this is the common time frame to handle such processing throughout the world.
But while confessing that there has been some degree of improvement in the time developers have to wait to get their plans approved, chairman of the Jamaica Developers' Association Mr. Reynold Scott also said, "Unless developers get involved in following up the process, then the 90-day period is not guaranteed."
"The developers have to monitor the plans at the agency to ensure the agency is responding within the prescribed time," he added.
NEPA is the national agency responsible for providing technical and administrative support to land or housing projects involving 10 or more units. It is there to ensure that orderly sustainable development takes place which will not harm the environment.
Its decisions are of major importance to developers as the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC) and parish councils put their final stamp of approval on developers' plans based on NEPA's recommendation.
"About four years ago we had to lobby for the 90 days," emphasised Mr. Scott. He said it took nine months to two years for developers to get approval for their plans up to 2001.
Up to early last year the situation saw some improvement but that the approval process is slipping back into a lengthy delay once more due to due to internal mechanism at the KSAC. He admitted that there has been an increase in the number development plans submitted at the KSAC.
Mrs. Frances said in 2005, NEPA received 121 applications for housing developments and sub-divisions of lots, island-wide. She said the agency managed to approve 38 applications which could translate to the approval of a minimum of 380 housing units be built. Forty four sub-divisions were also approved. However these figures were not necessarily from the total number of applications received for that year.
"Based on the nature of some applications it impossible to take less than 90 days. The process is not as smooth as people expect," said Ms. Francis. She said by law the agency must circulate applications to the National Water Association and different agencies for an opinion.
"You are looking at the whole gamut of all the issues put together," she said. "NEPA gives them a set time to respond but there are resource constraints and you have to wait on their comments."
Outside of these reasons, Ms. Frances said some developers are to be blamed for the lag in the process. She said when the agency asks for clarification from applicants, they sometimes take a long time to respond.
As well, some projects are not as straightforward and need an environment impact assessment. "We can't just say we have not heard from this agency so we will respond to the applicant anyway.
Ms. Frances said there are also cases where developers lie about the details of their projects which are discovered only on site inspections. She said some developers start construction before approval is granted.
Nonetheless, Ms. Francis said there have been cases where the approval process took less than 90 days.
