A two-day workshop was held earlier this week (see Friday paper) on revising the building code. It’s no doubt an important issue considering the catastrophic impact of record-strength Hurricane Irma.
The theme “Building back better through an enhanced resilience programme” sounds good, but many will have completed the reconstruction of their damaged homes and businesses well before the actual update to be proposed by August can be realised through a law change that both the Council of Ministers and Parliament must approve. After all, introducing new demands retroactively is obviously not possible.
The latter means that certainly existing building permits will remain valid, including the one issued last December for the Belmont Hotel’s two 21-floor towers planned in Cupecoy. Concern has been expressed about going that high on an island where tropical weather systems are common, but one assumes that – especially now – any developer in their right mind would take the latter into account.
There was also some confusion soon after Irma struck, when the Ministry of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure VROMI announced building permits were needed to repair people’s broken houses. When that caused an uproar, the rule was said to apply only in cases where adjustments to the original structures are made, so that simply replacing what was already there did not require such.
While the assistance of the international arm of the Dutch Association of Municipalities VNG is much-appreciated, government officials in charge of this matter would do well to also look elsewhere in the Caribbean region where there is vast practical experience with hurricanes. The regulations of Miami’s Dade County, for example, are well-known to be some of the strictest in the world in that sense and should be consulted so there is no need to reinvent the wheel.
