People who continue building homes in defiance of an order from the Town & Country Development Planning Office may end up in jail.
Imprisonment is one of the possibilities stemming from Government’s plan to amend the Town and Country Planning Act to put the Chief Town Planner in a better position to deal with breaches.
Prime Minister Freundel Stuart told the House of Assembly yesterday the amendment would address one of the “absurdities” in the law which allowed people to “rush to court to get an injunction against the Chief Town Planner”, who did not have such recourse.
Stuart complained that “too many people” were turning “a deaf ear and a blind eye” to the office’s notification that their construction broke the rules and they should desist.
Once the construction reached a critical stage and faced the threat of demolition, “bleeding hearts then emerge from somewhere”, pleading for the structure to be left, Stuart said.
According to Stuart, the amendment going to Parliament “not too long from now” would give the Chief Town Planner and his office the right to go to court to get an injunction against anyone deemed in breach of the building rules. (TY)
