What are described as “pretty significant delays” in the planning approval process in Bermuda are cause for concern Julia van Beelen, president of the Institute of Bermuda Architects, said this week echoing the warnings of construction industry leader Alex DeCouto.

As reported in Tuesday’s Royal Gazette, Mr. DeCouto, who heads the Construction Association of Bermuda, believes there are signs of a dip in activity in the construction sector caused by lengthy delays in planning applications being processed and building permits issued.

The delays have worsened over the past 18 months and in some cases are holding up projects for a year or longer, affecting an important segment of the economy and raising the possibility of future lay-offs for construction workers if prolonged delays on large projects continue.

To a degree the problem is being caused by understaffing within the Department of Planning, but Ms Van Beelen also believes there is a further element holding up projects and that is the tendency of some developers to submit drawings and plans that have not been created by qualified architects.

While these documents and artistic interpretations often have merit, they are also liable to jam up the planning process because they are incomplete or do not satisfy all the necessary requirements.

Whatever the cause of the delays, Ms Van Beelen feels people could increasingly be tempted to overcome the delays by going ahead and starting projects and then seek retrograde approval.

“Unfortunately, I think there will be a backlash. People are going to lose respect for the planning process. This is a problem that is going to need to be addressed,” she said.

“The planning department has its tremendous challenges. For one, there are other service providers, not just architects, providing drawings to the department. The Institute has advised that the quality of the information coming in is not of the standard required.”

People who decide to submit drawings that have been created by service providers and not by architects are creating a big problem for the understaffed planning department.

“Architects have a strict professional education. There are other service providers who have no background of any kind in drafting, they just pick up a pencil. In one way that is commendable, but in another it is not good for the consumer. You get what you pay for,” said Ms Van Beelen.

Having enough qualified planning department personnel is another issue.

“We hope to see improvements and I know the planning department is trying to recruit more people. There are very few Bermudians coming up in the profession.”

Mr. DeCouto felt increasing requests for Special Development Orders (SDOs) was partially as a reaction to the slow planning process as developers seek ways to short-cut the system.

But Ms Van Beelen was not so sure that is the whole picture. She said: “People are trying to work around the delays and be creative and work with the planning department. SDOs can be used in this way but I don’t think they should be accepted if they are.

“The latitude of projects that are granted SDOs now is a lot broader and that needs to be looked at. I’d say that people are using SDO requests for projects that have difficult planning issues.”