Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has an­nounced that the De­vel­opTT team of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion (TCPD) has ful­ly im­ple­ment­ed plan­ning per­mis­sion ap­pli­ca­tions, the sta­tus of land cor­re­spon­dence and stamp du­ty cor­re­spon­dence via the De­vel­opTT plat­form in Trinidad from June 2022. 

Ac­cord­ing to this press re­lease, De­vel­opTT is the au­to­mat­ed con­struc­tion per­mit­ting sys­tem for Trinidad and To­ba­go. It was de­vel­oped in 2018 and launched in phas­es from 2020, the De­vel­opTT plat­form falls in line with the Gov­ern­ment’s thrust to dig­i­talise and mod­ernise ser­vices to the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease from the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment:

Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is an­nounc­ing for pub­lic in­for­ma­tion that the De­vel­opTT team of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion (TCPD) has ful­ly im­ple­ment­ed plan­ning per­mis­sion ap­pli­ca­tions, sta­tus of land cor­re­spon­dence and stamp du­ty cor­re­spon­dence via the De­vel­opTT plat­form in Trinidad from the month of June 2022. 

De­vel­opTT is the au­to­mat­ed con­struc­tion per­mit­ting sys­tem for Trinidad and To­ba­go.  In de­vel­op­ment since 2018 and launched in phas­es from 2020, the De­vel­opTT plat­form falls in line with Gov­ern­ment’s thrust to dig­i­talise and mod­ernise ser­vices to the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Cit­i­zens with­in the TCPD’s North Re­gion­al, South Re­gion­al and East Re­gion­al Of­fices have full ac­cess to elec­tron­i­cal­ly sub­mit ap­pli­ca­tions, once they have reg­is­tered with the De­vel­opTT sys­tem.  Prop­er­ty de­vel­op­ers, builders and per­sons seek­ing ap­provals in To­ba­go on­ly have ac­cess to sta­tus of land cor­re­spon­dence and stamp du­ty cor­re­spon­dence for the time be­ing.  The Di­vi­sion is work­ing to al­so have full ac­cess to the plat­form in To­ba­go soon.

Each plan­ning re­gion in Trinidad re­ceives an av­er­age of 1,600 to 2,000 ap­pli­ca­tions an­nu­al­ly and the is­land­wide in­tro­duc­tion of plan­ning per­mis­sion via De­vel­opTT is in­tend­ed to make the sub­mis­sion process more ef­fi­cient for users of the sys­tem from the pub­lic, as well as for the agen­cies en­gaged in the plan­ning ap­proval process.  In ad­di­tion to the TCPD, some of the oth­er agen­cies with­in the sys­tem in­clude the T&T Fire Ser­vices, the four­teen (14) Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions which is­sue build­ing and sub­di­vi­sion per­mits and com­ple­tion cer­tifi­cates, the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) which ap­proves wa­ter and sewage con­nec­tions as well as plumb­ing sys­tems with­in build­ings, and the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) which is re­spon­si­ble for en­vi­ron­men­tal ap­provals. 

Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les con­grat­u­lat­ed the TCPD and em­pha­sised that this im­por­tant mile­stone al­so sup­ports the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to per­for­mance re­gard­ing im­prov­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness.  “As Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for spa­tial de­vel­op­ment, I would like to add that De­vel­opTT al­so fa­cil­i­tates best prac­tice in terms of land use and de­vel­op­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”  The Min­is­ter al­so added that the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, through the TCPD will con­tin­ue to make im­prove­ments and ad­di­tions to ser­vices un­der the con­struc­tion per­mit­ting process.

The De­vel­opTT sys­tem is al­so meant to al­low more ef­fi­cient and trans­par­ent ap­pli­ca­tion pro­cess­ing and re­duce the de­pen­den­cy on pa­per based sub­mis­sions. The sys­tem al­lows ap­pli­cants to sub­mit and track their ap­pli­ca­tions, while as­sist­ing oth­er gov­ern­ment agen­cies to process sub­mis­sions dig­i­tal­ly. The de­ci­sion let­ters, cer­tifi­cates and stamped plans are al­so avail­able in soft copy via De­vel­opTT, re­duc­ing the need to phys­i­cal­ly vis­it an agency.

Min­is­ter Beck­les em­pha­sis­es this project’s abil­i­ty to ful­fil Gov­ern­ment’s aim to achieve the glob­al Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs), specif­i­cal­ly Goal 11, Sus­tain­able Cities and Com­mu­ni­ties.  The ad­vance­ments made through the De­vel­opTT plat­form al­so sup­port Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Strat­e­gy, Vi­sion 2030’s Theme II and goals of De­liv­er­ing Good Gov­er­nance and Ser­vice Ex­cel­lence.