DEVELOPERS whose housing units deviate from approved building plans may find themselves having to pay steep fines for the breaches.

On Wednesday, the Building and Town Planning Committee of the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC) gave notice that it would recommend to the Local Government ministry that developers who breach the approved plans pay a fine of two million dollars per unit.

“We are concerned that the guilty developers are not only cheating density but are also cheating the government of taxes. We will ask that their licences be withdrawn and that they pay a fine of two million dollars per unit,” said Lee Clarke, chairman of the Building and Town Planning Committee.

Clarke said that the KSAC would meet with the Real Estate board, the Developers Association, and the Finance and Local Government ministries at the end of June to discuss the problem.

After the meeting he told the Observer that the KSAC was encountering an increasing number of cases where developers were breaching the approved building plans.

He mentioned a development of 19 two-bedroom townhouses on Hopefield Avenue for which the building committee approved plans on December 27, 2005. According to Clarke, a recent inspection of the site revealed that the developers were attempting to construct 16 three-bedroom townhouse units.

“Some developers have not been building according to the approved plans for a very long time. From time to time we see advertisements by the Real Estate Board for three-bedroom units that the Building and Town Planning Committee had approved as two-bedroom units,” Clarke said.

Meanwhile Joyce Young (Jamaica Labour Party Councillor, Duhaney Park division) said that some developers sought to circumvent the approved plans by building with high ceilings that enabled them to add a loft to increase the number of bedrooms.

Clarke, however, said that the KSAC could ask developers to “lick down the loft”.

In September 2006, Kingston Mayor Desmond McKenzie warned developers that the KSAC would be “taking strong and effective action against those who fail to comply with the approved stipulations”.

At that time the mayor said that the KSAC had stopped construction at the Monte Carlo Isle Developers North American Holdings Limited site in Seymour Lands, St Andrew, after inspections showed that the apartments being built were different from what was approved.

The original plan approved by the KSAC was for one-bedroom units but when inspectors visited the site, they said that two-bedroom apartments were being constructed.

“They had changed the orientation. They were putting walls in a different place than in the original plan, and had also put in additional walls,” Norman Shand, city engineer told the Observer.