From Mon­day 8 June 2020, some parts of Ch­agua­nas, San Juan, Tu­na­puna and Cou­va, will have ac­cess to a new on­line por­tal that al­lows users to sub­mit de­vel­op­ment per­mit­ting ap­pli­ca­tions elec­tron­i­cal­ly, to the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion (TCPD).

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease is­sued by the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, res­i­dents from the T5 Plan­ning Re­gion will have ac­cess to De­vel­opTT, the new on­line TCPD ap­pli­ca­tion por­tal, as the sec­ond Pi­lot is con­duct­ed in the T5 Re­gion.  The bound­aries for the re­gion in­clude:

•  Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion

•  Cou­va / Tabaquite / Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion

•  Por­tion of Tu­na­puna / Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion

•  Por­tion of San Juan / Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion

The Min­istry ex­plains that im­me­di­ate­ly up­on the Pi­lot’s ex­pan­sion to these ar­eas, dig­i­tal sub­mis­sions for con­struc­tion and oth­er re­lat­ed ap­provals in the form of Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion re­quests, Plan­ning Per­mis­sions, Build­ing Per­mits and Com­ple­tion Cer­tifi­cates, will com­mence.  The Pi­lots in T1 and T5 al­low for im­por­tant da­ta and feed­back to en­sure the full readi­ness of the sys­tem be­fore a na­tion­wide launch.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Plan­ning, Cher­rie-Ann Crichlow-Cock­burn, ex­pects an ex­po­nen­tial in­crease in reg­is­trants and ap­pli­cants with the ex­pan­sion of the Pi­lot to the T5 re­gion.

“Since March 2020, the sys­tem has been ac­cept­ing ap­pli­ca­tions from the Port of Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion, Diego Mar­tin and San Juan / Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions called the T1 Re­gion,” Min­is­ter Crichlow-Cock­burn re­ports.  “Dur­ing the COVID-19 stay-at home pe­ri­od, over 150 cit­i­zens have reg­is­tered on­line to use the new pa­per­less ser­vice from T1 alone.”

De­vel­opTT is a part­ner­ship of the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment and Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try, and al­so in­volves the oth­er gov­ern­ment agen­cies and Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions in­volved in the con­struc­tion per­mit­ting ap­pli­ca­tion process such as: the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty, the T&T Fire Ser­vice, the EMA, Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions, T&TEC and so on. 

The Plan­ning Min­istry notes that the De­vel­opTT project is al­so crit­i­cal to the Min­istry of Trade’s ef­forts to im­prove Trinidad and To­ba­go’s per­for­mance in the Ease of do­ing Busi­ness In­dex Rank­ings. 

Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, Dr. Kei­th Row­ley, strong­ly cham­pi­ons the project and wel­comes its full im­ple­men­ta­tion na­tion­al­ly as crit­i­cal to the Gov­ern­ment’s dri­ve to­wards T&T’s sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.

Ap­pli­ca­tions sub­mit­ted via De­vel­opTT are processed elec­tron­i­cal­ly on a se­cured URL that us­es a Se­cure Sock­et Lay­er (SSL) en­cryp­tion. This type of se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­col is used to trans­mit pri­vate doc­u­ments via the in­ter­net. The sys­tem con­verts in­for­ma­tion or da­ta in­to codes that pre­vent unau­tho­rized ac­cess.

To sup­port the sys­tem’s se­cu­ri­ty, reg­is­tered users are pro­vid­ed with a com­put­er-gen­er­at­ed pass­code (ID) that is on­ly known to the re­cip­i­ent. This unique pass­code per­mits ac­cess to the user’s per­son­al dash­board. The on­line dash­board is where the ap­pli­cant can view their sen­si­tive and or con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion up­loaded dur­ing ap­pli­ca­tion sub­mis­sion. The dash­board is where the user will re­ceive sta­tus up­dates and ac­cess elec­tron­ic of­fi­cial re­spons­es pro­vid­ed by the rel­e­vant agen­cies.

The en­tire process is now, there­fore, pa­per­less.  The Min­istry says this will al­so al­low for a lev­el of in­creased trans­paren­cy in the con­struc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion process, as users will have di­rect ac­cess to feed­back or lack there­of and there­fore, can re­act or re­spond in a fit­ting man­ner.  Through this project, the Plan­ning Min­istry aims to im­prove the per­for­mance of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion.

To use the new TCPD on­line ser­vice, users must be reg­is­tered and re­ceive a unique ID (Pass­code). Reg­is­tra­tion in­for­ma­tion is avail­able at:

•  www.de­vel­optt.gov.tt; and

•  www.ttbi­zlink.gov.tt.