The Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment has im­ple­ment­ed in­ter­im mea­sures to re­duce or elim­i­nate the spread of COVID-19. The Min­istry says the pur­pose of these steps is to safe­guard its em­ploy­ees and cit­i­zens.
In a press re­lease is­sued to­day, the Min­istry an­nounced new guide­lines for the sub­mis­sion of ap­pli­ca­tions, meet­ings, and col­lec­tion of re­spons­es.

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment

While the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion (TCPD) is work­ing to en­sure that all es­sen­tial ser­vices with­in its man­date are main­tained, ac­tions nec­es­sary in keep­ing with so­cial dis­tanc­ing poli­cies of the Min­istry of Health to re­duce, or elim­i­nate, the spread of COVID-19 are be­ing in­sti­tut­ed. 

The TCPD’s Of­fices are all open for busi­ness. How­ev­er, in or­der to con­tin­ue safe­guard­ing cit­i­zens and em­ploy­ees against the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the Di­v­sion will be im­ple­ment­ing the fol­low­ing in­ter­im mea­sures from Tues­day 2nd June 2020:

1.                  Sub­mis­sion of Ap­pli­ca­tions - “Drop Box­es” will be strate­gi­cal­ly placed at each Re­gion­al Of­fice to fa­cil­i­tate the sub­mis­sion of NEW ap­pli­ca­tions and Com­plaint Mat­ters. Mem­bers of the pub­lic are re­mind­ed that ap­pli­ca­tions must sat­is­fy the guide­lines pro­vid­ed by the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion. It is im­per­a­tive that the en­velopes be sealed and that an email ad­dress be in­clud­ed in the pack­age. Re­ceipts will be scanned and emailed to ap­pli­cants. 

2.                  Meet­ings / dis­cus­sions with Of­fi­cers – In or­der to re­duce the need for mem­bers of the pub­lic to phys­i­cal­ly vis­it the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion’s of­fices in Port of Spain, Tu­na­puna, San Fer­nan­do and To­ba­go, the pub­lic is ad­vised to sched­ule ap­point­ments via tele­phone or email. Ap­point­ments will be sched­uled based on the spe­cif­ic cir­cum­stances of the re­quest or in­quiry. Where pos­si­ble, staff of the TCPD will arrange to meet with ap­pli­cants us­ing avail­able vir­tu­al plat­forms such as Mi­crosoft Teams or Zoom. How­ev­er, for per­sons who will vis­it the re­spec­tive of­fices, phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing mea­sures will be in ef­fect and face masks are com­pul­so­ry.

3.                  Col­lec­tion of Re­spons­es - Ap­pli­cants will be con­tact­ed by the rel­e­vant Re­gion­al Of­fices with re­spect to the col­lec­tion of re­spons­es to ap­pli­ca­tions.

4.                  Ap­pli­ca­tion Forms - Ap­pli­ca­tion forms are avail­able on­line via https://www.plan­ning.gov.tt/tcpd-ser­vices/ap­pli­ca­tion-forms, thus elim­i­nat­ing the need to phys­i­cal­ly col­lect a forms.  How­ev­er, forms are avail­able at each Re­gion­al Of­fice.

5.                  On­line Sub­mis­sions - Ap­pli­cants in Port of Spain, Diego Mar­tin and with­in the ju­ris­dic­tion of the San Juan Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion have ac­cess to the pa­per­less con­struc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion sys­tem, De­vel­opTT. The De­vel­opTT pi­lot was launched on March 2, be­fore the na­tion­al stay at home mea­sures and has been func­tion­ing through­out April and May. 

While the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has cre­at­ed a chal­leng­ing en­vi­ron­ment glob­al­ly, it has al­so al­lowed the TCPD to ex­pe­dite some of the mea­sures util­is­ing new and ex­ist­ing tech­nol­o­gy to help fa­cil­i­tate the dri­ve to move to a pa­per­less con­struc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion sys­tem. An­oth­er goal of the De­vel­opTT plat­form is to im­prove Trinidad and To­ba­go’s rank­ing on the Ease of Do­ing Busi­ness In­dex, by short­en­ing the time frame for ap­pli­ca­tions to re­ceive re­spons­es re­gard­ing ap­proval, there­fore al­low­ing de­vel­op­ers to start their projects faster than be­fore. These mea­sures al­so re­duce the need for phys­i­cal con­tact now that the con­struc­tion sec­tor has been giv­en the go-ahead to re­sume.