The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

A well-known contractor yesterday urged the Government to identify and alleviate the “bottlenecks” in the planning and approvals process, particularly for single-family homes, claiming that such projects were pumping money directly back into the the economy.

Stephen Wrinkle, the Bahamian Contractors Association’s (BCA) immediate past president, and head of Wrinkle Development Company, said small and medium-sized contractors, who make up the majority of the industry, were heavily dependent on such projects.

Deputy Prime Minister Philip Davis, during his 2014-2015 Budget communication, said the Department of Physical Planning for many years has been challenged by a lack of space and inadequate staffing.

He added that the staff will move to new accommodations on J F Kennedy Driv, and will have ample space to administer all planning functions under one roof.

Mr Davis said the department expects to recruit additional staff, and that draft revisions to the Planning and Subdivisions Act contain changes which are proposed to simplify the process for ordinary applications, which comprise about 95 per cent of proposals submitted to the department.

“It can be a rather slow process that really hasn’t changed in a long time,” said Mr Wrinkle. “The engineers and architects at the Ministry of Works deal with single family homes more expediently if there are no queries with the plans.

“If there are are no queries, the process moves quickly. My personal experience has been that when there is a query, that’s when the chain of communication seems to break down. There may have been a query on a plan two to three weeks ago, and you find it out when you get there.

“They are working hard and they have so many other things to move on, that matter could get pushed to the back of the queue if they are not able to resolve their queries quickly.”

Mr Wrinkle added: “I think the Government should make some improvements to the system. Construction is the quickest way to pump money back into the economy.

“A guy looking to building a three-bed, two bathroom home is going to hire a small/ medium sized contractor. The quicker such a project can get approved, the quicker the contractor can get to work and his guys get paid.

“We pay our guys every Friday and they go out and spend money. We put money into the economy every Friday; it’s cash and carry.”

Mr Wrinkle stressed it was “very important” to have improved zoning regulations for this nation for uses such as commercial, residential, light industry, multi and single family. “We have some serious planning issues in this country,” said Mr Wrinkle.