The state is losing €50 million per year because of delaysin the issuing of planning permits, according to the Cyprus Technical Chamber.
It said the state could use this money to build ten schools,three hospitals or a museum each year.
The chamber’s study says that there is vicious circle oflegal distortions and poor implementation of regulations in the permit processwhich leads to large delays and violations of the law.
The delay in the issuing of permits translates into theunauthorised operation of hotels, restaurant/bars, shops and swimming pools, itadded.
“The long delays lead to irregularities, cost money and leadto the consolidation of a culture of illegality where law-abiding citizens arepunished,” the study said.
The problems identified are:
· There is a large number of planning Authorities(in relation to the number of permits issued) who do not have the expertiseneeded or have other weaknesses.
· The General Building Regulations are obsolete,with many shortcomings and repetitions, resulting in a difficult text that itis hard to interpret.
· Long delays in the issuing of permits and modernproperty titles.
· Extensive irregularities, i.e. starting ofconstruction starting before permits, use of buildings without authorisationand urban planning and building irregularities at construction sites.
· Complete lack of building control on theconstruction site.
· Unskilled supervisors which are highly dependenton the license applicants.
· Complete lack of use of the online applicationsubmissions system.
· Poor performance of the Republic in thesubmission of contracts.
· Town planning and building principles focused ondetails instead of being effective.
To resolve these issues the Technical Chamber suggests:
· The creation of a registry for architectural andcivil engineering offices which will upgrade their role and will allow thestate to give them more responsibilities.
· Application of the institution of thethird-party building inspector.
· Requirement that a properly completedapplication for a building permit accompanied by a certificate of completion ofworks be submitted before the inspection.
· Defining requirements and internal proceduresand maximum test / response time depending on the type and use of the building.
· Rapid computerisation and the possibility ofelectronic submission of town and building applications.
· Modernisation of the areas of Local Governmentrelated to town planning authorities.
· Complete revision of the Law on Town Planning,including the creation of a modern General Building Regulation.
· The Town Planning and Housing Department admitsthat there are problems in the process of issuing planning permits.
Recently, Minister of Interior, Constantinos Petrides said thatin order to get a planning permit one can go to ten different authorities(Department of Town Planning and Housing, the five municipalities of the citiesand the five District Offices of the Department of Town Planning and Housing)and to get a building permit one can go to 36 authorities (30 municipalities, acommunity and the five District Offices of the Department of Town Planning andHousing)
In November 2016 the Interior Ministry had begun the task ofreforming Cyprus’ time consuming and complex procedures involved with thelicensing and control of building development as announced by the InteriorMinistry. In November 2017 The World Bank ‘Doing Business’ report for Cyprushighlighted the mind-boggling level of bureaucracy in dealing with buildingpermits involving several government and local authority departments.
Now here we are inOctober 2018 and it appears that little (if any) progress has been made onthese vital reforms.