SANTO DOMINGO – The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources has become a hindrance to the construction sector, said Teodoro Tejada, former president of the Dominican College of Engineers, Architects and Surveyors (Codia), yesterday. He opined that the previous administration of that agency represented a setback for the entity and that all the progress made in the last 20 years was reversed.
“That man was not fit for that position; he thinks he’s the only serious person in this country. The builders here are honest,” Tejada said, referring to economist Miguel Ceara Hatton, former minister of the aforementioned state agency.
When asked by El Inmobiliarioabout the complaints from some business owners in the eastern part of the country and the Dominican capital, who are complaining about the prolonged delays in the issuance of building permits, the engineering professional said he hopes that the current head, Paíno Henríquez, will be open to processing the pending files that have been languishing for up to seven months without being released.
He stated that halting the processing of a plan is a crime against the construction sector, directly harming builders, workers, and the country's financial and hardware sectors.
He believed that the State has an obligation to create real viability and provide an immediate solution to the problem, not with announcements at press conferences, but with actions.
He emphasized that the fact that the Dominican Association of Housing Builders and Promoters (Acoprovi) has complained, and the builders in particular, means that the State is failing because all the works for which permits are requested comply with the prerogatives of the law and with the anti-seismic code of 2011.
Engineer Teodoro Tejada. (External source).
“All the works processed through the Ministries of Housing, Habitat and Buildings (Mivhed) and Environment, are works that first have a permit granted by Urban Planning of the City Council, which means that it correctly complies with the established standards such as height and density.
Tejada declared: “If you are paralyzing the engine that gives dynamism to the economy, what you want is illegal construction,” he asserted, after pointing out that this is why there are many engineers who build based on city permits, because they have sales commitments for the projects, in which case they often have to return the money to protect their image, since people label them as shameless, when the problem lies elsewhere.
Teodoro Tejada specified that although the Ministry of Housing, Urban Development and Housing (MIVHED) has its delays, the main obstacle lies in the Ministries of Tourism and Environment. In the case of the latter, he explained that permits take up to seven months and that part of the problem is that the last ministers it has had are not environmentalists.
He insisted that during Ceara Hatton's administration there was total chaos, which led to many tensions in environmental impact permits and therefore a "bottleneck", as well as in Tourism.
In the case of the Ministry of Tourism, he clarified that this situation doesn't apply to everyone. "For example, for the major hotel chains, but in the area of apartment construction there are always obstacles, while for hotels things flow smoothly.".
The East is chaos
Tejada maintained that the situation in the East is regrettable, and that all permits for that area are processed through the Dominican capital, which only exacerbates the problem. “This is a setback because the same situation from 20 years ago persists,” he stated, adding that the local offices in the towns simply collect cases and refer them to the National District.
He argued that those who hinder construction permits have a significant impact on the Dominican economy, because when construction is paralyzed, the dynamism stops, since it is the main catalyst for jobs in the country.
He added that several sectors are indirectly affected, such as the construction industry, the hardware store, the woman who sells food in the towns, and all the actors involved in the process.
“Here they have been negligent in issuing building permits, and that one-stop shop thing is a myth, that has never existed in this country,” the professional emphasized.
An accountant processing blueprints
Engineer Tejada criticized the fact that the person in charge of processing plans in the Punta Cana area belongs to the accounting department, which he described as "very serious".
Solutions
In his opinion, a possible solution is for the three ministries, Tourism, Environment and Mivhed, to start by releasing the permits that have been in place the longest, classifying them and not lumping them all together as is currently the case.
Acoprovi
In June of this year, the Dominican construction sector called on the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Mimarena) to curb obstacles and expedite permit processing, which they said has gone from being approved in 15 days to taking up to 6 months, which could affect the growth of the construction sector this year and limit investments.
Annerys Meléndez, president of the Association of Housing Builders and Developers (Acoprovi), speaking on behalf of a group of entities in the sector, said that the prolonged delays currently affecting the construction sector could represent significant losses for one of the pillars of the national economy.
In yesterday's edition of El Inmobiliario two businessmen from the East Zone complained about the same situation, arguing that delays in the delivery of permits are hindering real estate development in that area.
