By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The deputy prime minister yesterday pledged to slash building permit turnaround times by up to 80 percent with the implementation of Building Control’s long-awaited digital approval system.

Desmond Bannister, addressing a conference to unveil the Ministry of Works’ Electronic Permit Review and Inspection System (EPRIS), said he would hold US-based contractor, Tyler Technologies, to a public launch date in six months’ time.

With ministry and Building Control officials going so far as to describe digitisation’s arrival as “tear-jerking”, momentous” and “historic”, Mr Bannister promised between a 60-80 percent reduction in turnaround time for building permit applications once the system goes live.

Suggesting that EPRIS will “revolutionise” the process for all construction-related professions, the deputy prime minister said: “The current time that it takes to process a building permit is estimated to be on average 55 to 75 days. That’s approximately eight to ten weeks. That’s a significantly long time when a project needs to move forward and other approvals must be obtained from various ministries and agencies.

“I am pleased to advise that the implementation of the EPRIS programme will allow for all of the agencies involved in the building permit process to review drawings concurrently, which is expected to reduce the processing time of residential applications to 15 days or two weeks, and commercial applications to 30 days or one month on average.”

Mr Bannister said retirement of Building Control’s existing paper-based system will further enhance what he described as a post-COVID “construction boom”, speeding up such projects and driving greater local and foreign direct investment (FDI) activity that has been made even more important by the pandemic’s devastating fall-out.

He added that speeding up the approval, and issuance, of building permits will also boost The Bahamas’ international competitiveness in real estate-related industries, enhance government revenues and improve this nation’s position in the World Bank’s ‘ease of doing business’ rankings.

With The Bahamas currently ranked 77th out of 190 nations when it comes to dealing with construction permits, Mr Bannister added: “This anticipated reduction in the time it takes to receive a building permit is anticipated to improve our ranking significantly in this area, and thus result in greater economic activity.

“It is foreshadowed that as construction starts to increase, the enhanced resulting economic activity would mean more construction jobs and investment opportunities being made available in the country.”

Brent Ferguson, acting building control officer, said the EPRIS system’s introduction in early 2022 will “make a major difference” in the agency’s fight to clear the backlog of building permit applications by enabling better communications with project sponsors and their architects, engineers and contractors.

With the Building Control Department receiving between 1,000-1,500 applications annually, he added: “We do have a backlog, we recognise there’s a backlog and in time we expect it to be reduced to a minimum.”

Asserting that EPRIS will boost the Ministry of Works’ efficiency “across the board”, Mr Bannister said in response to a Tribune Business question: “This is absolutely critical. Since I became minister I have had any number of persons call me on a weekly basis asking about the status of their applications and getting them moving ahead.

“It’s quite a financial burden for somebody investing in The Bahamas to seek to have plans submitted and to have their projects approved, and carry interest costs for a significant period of time. That’s a financial burden we’re going to reduce.”

Besides reducing the loan payments developers have to make while waiting for permit approvals, the deputy prime minister added that faster turnaround times will also ensure better cash flow for architects, engineers and other professionals working to make their projects a reality.

Citing another example in response to a ZNS reporter’s question, Mr Bannister added: “One of your Abaco workers has been communicating with me for several weeks about a permit application that has been in. There was a challenge because the architect has not done what was needed to be done, and there are other challenges now.

“That communication process will be enhanced. The Building Control Officer and his staff will be able to instantly communicate throughout the country and the world in relation to applications before the ministry. These types of challenges with respect to communicating shortcomings in applications, in many cases although the ministry takes the blame, there are many very cases where there are challenges and shortcomings in the application before us.

“Our people have to make inquiries, ask for supplemental information, ask for changes in plans and designs. All these challenges we will be able to deal with much more efficiently when this process is implemented in no more than six months.”

Mr Ferguson backed Mr Bannister, adding that applications with unanswered questions and complications can “remain in limbo for some time” until they are addressed. “There are quite a number of applications that stay in limbo for various reasons, and in a lot of cases won’t proceed unless there is code compliance.”

Mr Bannister confirmed that Tyler Technologies had been awarded a $1.543m contract, together with a $385,849 “contingency”, to install the EPRIS system and train government officials and private sector stakeholders in its use.

The US-based technology contractor, which since 2014 has been supplying the Government with software solutions to map and collect real property tax, beat-off Crimson Logic and Bahamas Business Solutions to secure the deal with what the deputy prime minister described as “the lowest price, and scoring the highest in the evaluation process”.

Garth Magness, a Tyler Technologies senior account executive, explained that EPRIS was derived from the company’s EnerGov product, which he described as “a best-in-class end-to-end permitting and development review system”.

He added that it will facilitate online building permit applications; related online fee payments; the digital uploading of plans and drawings; provide information on whether projects have been inspected; make all records available online; and provide “tool sets” for construction industry professionals to “better manage work flow”.

“Paper-based systems are not only inefficient; they’re potentially rife with errors and mishaps,” Mr Magness said, adding that EPRIS represents “a better way of doing business”. He explained that the digital submission of application plans and drawings will allow multiple government agencies to work on them at the same time, rather than “sequentially” as happens now, thus significantly reducing turnaround time.

“Everyone is working from the same sheet of paper concurrently as opposed to sequentially,” Mr Magness added. He said EPRIS will “identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies that might exist in the process”, while also enabling inspectors to work offline in the field and thereby speed up their work.

Pointing to EnerGov’s existing impact, Mr Magness said it had produced a 30 percent reduction in permit turnaround time in Temecula, California. There had also been a 75 percent reduction in turnaround time for walk-in applications, and a 24-48 hour faster turnaround time from the submission of applications to approval.

In Tulsa, 45 percent of permits were being received online while there had been a 70 percent increase in persons submitting applications this way. Mr Magness said there had also been a 14 percent increase in annual inspections with the same staff, which he said was significant given that they collectively perform 100,000 building inspections annually.