Many people ignore it, but it's the law: if you have any kind of plans to build any homes or buildings, make any additions to your home, or if you're conducting any demolition, you must get a permit from the Central Building Authority.
That's the Government agency that polices all forms of construction from small residential projects, all the way up to large-scale development projects. In the past, you would have had to go to their Belmopan office to apply for building permits.
But, their offices have now been decentralized, as a result of the 2017 amendment to the Building Act. All of the 9 municipal governments countrywide now have their own building units that have the authority of the Central Building Units to grant permits within that town or city council's jurisdiction. To ensure that these municipal building units have the technical capacity to properly carry out that function, the Central Building Authority, and its related government agencies, have been traveling all around the country over the course of the past 2 months. They have been hosting a series of Municipal Building Unit Awareness Workshops.
The 9th and final workshop happened today, and the focus of this one was to prepare the Belize City Council's Building Unit for the job.
Here's what they told us about how applicants can get these building permits:
Oscar Arnold - Deputy Mayor, Belize City Council
"We have the Belize City Council here, Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, the Economic Development Unit out of Belmopan as well, and we also have the Central Building Authority."
"Back in 2017, an MOU was signed where the Central Building Authority would start a transition process to pass on the granting of permits for construction within the municipalities. During that transitional period, the municipalities had to ensure that they met certain criteria, for example, higher the right technical people with the technical experts, ensure that they had a building unit that could do the same type of work that the Central Building Authority was doing. It took some municipalities a little longer to get there than others, once you had your building unit implement, and you had it executed, and the technical people at the helm, then the municipalities would start to vet and give the permits, after reviewing the plans, as well as receiving revenue. So, it's was a new revenue stream for many municipalities."
Olga Tzec - Rep. Ministry of Housing/Urban Development
"These workshops actually were called the Building Unit Awareness Workshop Series. We have building units now throughout the country. We have 9 building units, and these units really are a representation of the Central Building Authority at the Municipal Level. So, we wanted people to know that the Building Units are in place, and this actually came about after the amendment to the Building Act in 2017. And that amendment is what gave birth to the Building Units. So, through these workshops, we have been able to go from district to district, town, and city, to let people know that these building units are in place."
"The Building Units are in place precisely because we want people to come in and apply, so that you can build in a safe way, according to safety standards put in place, according to the standards put in by the different line agencies. For example, what is the Ministry of Health saying? What is the PUC saying? So, we want people to apply so that when they come to apply for a building permit, you know that they have gone through, and gotten the clearances from other agencies, and then you can get your building permit, once those clearances have been done."
Alexia Peralta - Projects Officer, Economic Dev. Council
"So, the Economic Development Council is actually a unit under the Office of the Prime Minister. And our main mandate is to ensure and facilitate the ease of doing business in Belize. One of those particular processes, of course, the construction of buildings. We are familiar [with the fact] that in order to have a private business company, you need to have a building. And that seems to be one of the bottlenecks that many of the private sectors currently face, which is why the Economic Development Council is here today, and which is why we have been one of the key champions to create this reform where we're trying to connect everybody. We're trying to get everybody to understand that there is a better way of doing these things."
Of important note is that the Central Building Authorities and these different line agencies are currently trying to tackle 2 issues with this change. The first is if your construction project is within the jurisdiction of the 9 town and village councils, they have the ability to grant building permits. If your project is in a rural area, and not in the towns and cities, you still have to apply to the Central Building Authority's Belmopan office. Several ideas are being explored to deal with that gap.
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