KINGSTON, Jamaica — Promoters and companies will, as of next month, be required to pay an fee for large stages erected in the Corporate Area for entertainment purposes.

The stages will be inspected by the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC) for structural safety.

Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Councillor Lee Clarke, vice chairman of the Building and Town Planning Committee, on Wednesday said that promoters would be charged a fee for inspection of the stages.

Clarke said that City Engineer Norman Shand had been instructed to establish a fee policy for the inspections. The vice chairman said that the committee had to be proactive and could not wait on accidents to happen.

Meanwhile, People’s National Party (PNP) Councillor Kari Douglas (Trafalgar division) expressed dissatisfaction with the set back she observed on a visit to a hotel construction site at 2 Renfrew Road, Kingston 6 this week.

She requested that the city engineer revisit the location, and that technocrats from the National Works Agency (NWA) be a part of the inspection team.

At the January Building Committee meeting, Douglas had requested that a planning officer and a building officer accompany her to the Renfrew Road site to investigate if there were planning and building breaches.

Douglas said that the set back she saw at the construction site this week appeared to be inadequate. “I can’t see how service vehicles will have access,” she said.

Shand who recently visited the site, gave some background to the development under construction.

He said that as a result of concerns with overhang, in 2008 the KSAC building committee did not approve the structure. In 2009, the developer appealed to the JLP administration at that time, but the KSAC decision was upheld. However, the application was later approved.

The vice chairman instructed Shand to provide Douglas with the files on the development after the building meeting.

Claudienne Edwards