Members of the public can now review building permit applications and approvals online at the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC).

Mayor of Kingston and Chairman of the KSAMC, Senator Delroy Williams made the announcement on Friday during his contribution to the State of the Nation Debate in the Senate.

“This is a pioneering moment for local authorities and I’m proud to lead the council on this initiative,” Williams remarked.

He explained that the public can view online the stages of consideration of the application, make and view objections, view stages of approval and much more.

“This is a departure from what obtained in the past because, in the past, residents were only aware of developments in two ways; by the posting of notices at the construction site, and after the approval was done,” said Williams.

“Prior to this, most residents would not be aware of construction developments coming or taking place in their communities. Right now, what we do, as soon as an application is made, we post the application on our website and we allow for residents to search,” he explained further.

Online searches can be done by community, by district or by street so the public will be aware of the applications that are being processed.

“You are able to do your checks, raise your concerns or objections and those concerns or objections must be presented to the Building Committee in its consideration of the application,” Williams said.

He noted that the building officers cannot place an application before the building committee without also placing the objections raised to the application. The mayor pointed out that the building committee is comprised of persons drawn from a wide range of agencies, ministries and civil society.

“That is a point that people are not paying attention to; that there are various associations and professional bodies that are represented on the building committee at the municipality,” he said, stressing that this allows for a more transparent system in the building approval process.

“This builds upon our framework of publishing permit approvals. This is technology ushering in historic transparency. This is the people’s council, bringing the people closer to its operations. We’re moving the building inspection process to the next level,” said Williams.

Meanwhile, he said the KSAMC will shortly be moving to significantly increase the number of building inspectors it has from the current five.

The KSAMC chairman highlighted that since 2019 the corporation receives on average about 900 applications per year with just five inspectors.

“With five inspectors, the municipality is staffed well beneath the prescribed number of technical experts,” he said.