Sav mayor wants local fire dept to approve all building plans

ALL BUILDING plans above 9,000 square metres must be sent to the Corporate Area for approval by the Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB), but Bertel Moore, chairman of the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation (WMC), wants an end to that practice, saying it is holding up development in that municipality.

Moore said the protracted delays by the JFB headquarters in granting approval on building plans is not good for the parish, as it is stifling development. He noted that some plans take months to be approved.

“Houses and hotels with a certain size (from 9,000) have to go to the fire department in Kingston for approval – the fire department in Westmoreland cannot approve them – and it takes a long time,” Moore said during a stakeholders’ meeting in the parish on Wednesday.

The meeting, which was facilitated by Homer Davis, minister of state with responsibility for special projects in the Office of the Prime Minister West, was told that several projects could not get off the ground as a result of the delays in getting approvals.

According to Moore, who is also the mayor of Savanna-la-Mar, “The faster we can get approval, the better it is for us, as construction can start, which will then create employment.”

NOT WORKING WELL

He said the existing method is not working well and action should be taken to speed up the process, or empower the local fire department to approve all building plans.

“That is something I would love to see us doing in the very near future,” Moore said. “I don’t have a problem with them here, we always get them back as quickly as possible, but when they go into Kingston it takes a while.”

When contacted for a response, Floyd McLean, assistant commissioner with responsibility for Area 4 of the Jamaica Fire Brigade, in which Westmoreland falls, has denied claims by the WMC that the fire service is holding up the approval process for building plans.

He said the JFB has established a 30-day window within which it processes plans that are without deficiencies.

“No plans come to us and take 30 days for approval, unless we send a letter of rejection to the client to say these conditions in terms of submission were not met, and we need you to correct it,” McLean told The Gleaner.

“Sometimes, when those plans come back to us, the client did not address the problems outlined,” he explained.

When asked to respond to Moore’s desire for the local fire department to be empowered to approve all building plans, the JFB’s assistant commissioner noted that it would be the ideal method of operation, and that there is a push towards rolling out that level of service in the not-too-distant future.