No end to 12-year-old Hanover building saga

Western Bureau:

Developer Cleveland Campbell, who has been waiting for more than 12 years to get a building plan he submitted to the Hanover Municipal Corporation (HMC) approved, will have to continue waiting as no decision was taken on the plan at last week's meeting of the corporation's Physical Planning and Environment Committee.

The plan is for the construction of a multimillion-dollar apartment complex in the Bulls Bay area, which is some 20 minutes away from Negril by road.

At last week's meeting, Dwayne Johnson, the acting director of planning at the HMC, informed the meeting that he is aware of the length of time that the application has gone unapproved and suggested that Campbell resubmits new plans.

In the June 2018 meeting of the Physical Planning Committee when the matter was raised about the frustration being faced by Campbell, a Jamaican investor now residing in the United States, Sophia Kerr-Reid, the director of planning with the HMC, claimed ignorance to the details surrounding the matter, and asked for time to check the specifics of the case.

When the matter came up, Lucea's mayor, Councillor Sheridan Samuels, who is also chairman of the HMC, expressed much disappointment.

"After we hold up Mr Campbell's application for 12 years, we are now asking him to resubmit a new application. It was not any fault of his, as he had submitted his application and paid his fees, and we are asking him to resubmit and pay new fees?" asked Samuels.

"I think it is unfair, though, for one to submit their application for so long and because of some minor thing, with the drawings, we sit on it for 12 years. And the worst thing, as I understand it, is the gentleman was not even contacted to inform him as to where his plan is or any concern we have," added Samuels.

Johnson stated that it is his view that there would be no new fees requested with the resubmission of the new plans. A motion was then moved and approved for the submission of a detailed report on the reasons why the particular drawings were not approved initially.

In June, Campbell told The Gleaner that he had visited Jamaica in 2017 and went to the HMC and was told that the plans he submitted years earlier could not be found. He explained that he had paid an initial fee of $500,000 on submission of the plans and another fee to search for them, which were, to his knowledge, never found.