KSAC clamps down on Corporate Area buildings
Published:Thursday | April 15, 2010 | 12:00 AM
The Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC) has compiled a list of 46 buildings now being erected in the Corporate Area where the developers did not even bother to apply for a permit.
This was disclosed by Kingston Mayor Desmond McKenzie Tuesday, bringing attention to the growing number of illegal developments going up in the metropolis.
According to the mayor, 60 per cent of the developments were not in compliance with the city's building codes, representing $35 million in unpaid fees.
As a result, McKenzie said the KSAC was taking a tougher approach in their crackdown on this kind of activity.
Conceding that warnings by the KSAC are largely ignored, McKenzie said the plan now was to secure an injunction from the court.
"We are no longer going to depend only on notices, we are going to go the route of injunctions because when we go this route, we get a better response from the courts," he told reporters.
Injunction issued
The mayor's tough talk came hours after the KSAC got an injunction to shut down a used-car outlet along Constant Spring Road, close to Manor Park.
"Despite several notices, the operator ignored these notices and went ahead and change d the face of this location," McKenzie charged.
Two weeks ago, he said, the KSAC also got an injunction to stop work at 21 Coleyville Crescent, off Washington Boulevard, where a two-bedroom single-family dwelling was being converted into 22 rooms.
The mayor also charged that the individuals behind these illegal developments were usually "very affluent people".
"Ninety per cent of the violation is being done in areas that we describe as the upper middle class, the Golden Triangle," he stressed.
McKenzie warned that, starting on Monday, the KSAC's enforcement arm, with help from the police, will be fanning out into the Corporate Area to identify these developments.