Host – Hello good morning and many thanks for joining us for yet another edition of your favorite program ‘Your Neighbourhood and You’. As usual on the program, we have our guest and our sponsor who will help us dissect making rounds about our environment. A very good morning to you sponsor.
Sponsor – Good morning Comfort, how are you?
Host – I am very well, thank you. That’s Tpl Ogunseyi Ayodele, he is the sponsor of the program, and of course, we have our guest in the studio and he is no other person than Tpl Osunsanmi Gbolabo FNITP. Glad to have you on the program this morning sir
Guest – Good morning and good morning to our listeners at home, I am happy to be here.
Host – Alright, my name is Comfort Omolafe, can we meet you sir?
Guest – My name is TPL. Osunsanmi Gbolabo, FNITP.
Host – Okay. What is development permit?
Guest – Development permit is a document issued by the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development to give approval for a proposed development by a developer, individual or government agencies. It comes in two ways, first, a letter signed by the director conveying the approval of the ministry to commence development having satisfied the requirement of the ministry and paid the statutory government fee. The second aspect is that it’s an approval on the submitted working drawings confirming that the proposal is permitted to be developed.
Sponsor – Thank you very much sir, good to have you here again. Development permit and requirement in Ondo state differ from other state and we know that we have different requirements for residential, commercial and industrial building, can you just tell us the requirements?
Guest – The requirement varies, there is the general requirements and the specific ones. The general requirements entails that a prospective developer must prepare set of development plans to be submitted to the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development in line with the state building regulations guide of 1984 which is still in use in the state. Now, the architectural drawing must be prepared and signed by registered architect, the locational plan drawn and signed by a registered town planner, the mechanical drawings prepared by the mechanical/electrical engineers and signed. If it’s a construction that is more than one floor, structural drawings signed by a structural engineer must be submitted. All these are put together and called a development plan. The development plan will be accompanied by a TOPREC filled form and approved stamp for that particular development. That’s the general, when you have that signed by a registered town planner then you can now submit. Whether it is residential, commercial or industrial, this general one will suffix. While submitting, it is incumbent on the developer to also submit current tax clearance then pay the necessary assessment fees and attach the e-receipts to the development plan and submit as a development proposal to the ministry.
For the specific, to get approval for commercial, there is need to submit a professionally prepared land use analysis report to justify the commercial proposal. There is also the need to get a land use clearance if the place is not within the zone already declared as commercial zone. For example, those that are around Arakale, you don’t need a land use clearance because that place has been declared as a commercial area by the ministerial circular by the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development in year 2018 or thereabout. But for people that want to develop commercial property in other area in Akure that’s not designated, you must seek a land use clearance. The land use clearance is an approval in principle given by the department of physical planning signed by the director saying that that particular proposal you are bringing forward can be accommodated in that area.
For heavy industries like gas, petrol stations and the likes, an environmental impact assessment prepared and defended at the Ministry of Environment is required before approval is given. Specifically, these are the requirements that you have to put in place if you want to get your plans approved at the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development.
Host – Alright, the other day at your office, I saw application for fence permit, I want you to orient us, do we need to seek town planners or the ministry consent for fence permit?
Guest – Part of the requirement that is stipulated in the ministry, especially when you are not ready to develop that plot at that time. But if you are ready to develop the plot at the time, you go for development approval and the fence is already part of it.
Sponsor – Few weeks ago sir, government introduced Certificate of Occupancy as part of the requirement to get development permit in Ondo state. As a registered town planner, what do you think about this?
Guest – To be fair to the government, we can understand where they are coming from but the truth of the matter is that the consultation necessary before that proposed condition is implemented is not enough because for government owned estate, it is desirable but for private individuals and private land which by all standard is more than 60-70% of the land in Ondo state. It’s an addition burden, because by last year the ministry implemented that it is mandatory to produce tax clearance before you can get approval of the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development. By 1st of march 2022, the same ministry in a circular sent to the public reviewed upward the assessment fees for all applications in the ministry which was very high, the same Ministry in October 2022 is introducing compulsory submission of CofO before getting approval. This is burdensome and becoming additional cost for developers and even the individuals. The truth of the matter is that, even the CofO we are talking about, the duration of getting a CofO will negate the principle of ease of getting approval as applicable and practiced in neighboring states.
Now, let us use HOCOS as an example because they are giving 60 days to get your CofO. The meaning is that, the logistics involved to get your papers in, and to go and visit, will take 21 days and additional 7 days to review your paper. So, minimum of 30 days, its cumbersome. I think the govt needs to have a rethink about this in the interest of everybody. It is an additional cost. The minimum to get tax clearance is 170,000 in Ondo state. The same ministry is implementing upward review of assessment fees, for a typical plan, you won’t pay less than 85,000. Same ministry wants you to get CofO which is just a title to your property. It is desirable for those who wants to go to the bank to borrow money but to make it a prerequisite is not well thought off.
Host – People that can’t afford the CofO but goes ahead to construct without development approval, what is the consequences of this to physical planning?
Guest – There is no ignorance in law. Once a law or regulations are made, it is duty bound for you to comply and that is why we are making an appeal to the government to take another look at this directive. If we have a very good and sound enforcement unit and well-funded with personnel, there won’t be a problem. They will know they have to go to everywhere and enforce the regulations, that will be okay but I know the present min. of physical planning and urban development lack personnel and appropriate funding to carry out a sound and effective development control.
In this case, people in remote areas will not comply, they have not even been complying before. Go and ask how many persons has an approved building plan at Igoba, you will be shocked to see that it’s less than 10%. That is an existing situation, if you now add the issue of CofO as a condition, the person will just forget about approval and then there will be chaos. For government estate, good but for private estate, it should not be made mandatory to have CofO for one to get a building approval because it will now take a minimum of 90 days to secure approval from the ministry which will be counterproductive even for the ion of revenue generation of the ministry and the state government in general.
I think in cases like this I think we should look at what is happening in our neighboring environment. In Ekiti, Edo, Osun or Oyo state, they are not using it. In lagos state, they give conditional approval of 9 months then, when you secure your CofO, you come back and get final approved plan. Meanwhile, look at the demography and land area we have, we have about 15,000sqm kilometers of land, they are having about 3,000sqm. They have a population of about 20mil but we have about 3-5mil, yet they still give that consideration in Egos. Why must we now in Ondo state enforce CofO as a condition to get approval?
Sponsor – As a registered town planner and an environmentalist, assuming you are the commissioner of physical planning today, what would you have done differently?
Guest – Well, I will apply my professionalism to solve this problem and I want to tell you that within a year, I will generate 2 billion naira for the Kin. of physical and urban development and I will do this without putting burden on the people of ondo state.
Host – How do you intend to do this?
Guest – Because the ministry is statutorily empowered to ensure that we all have approved plans but either because of negligence or because of years of not doing the right thing, those that are having approved plans in the state are less than 30% of the entire population. I am talking about thousands and thousands of building that are existing and people are staying their 10-15 years without approved plan. What I will do is to capture everybody and ensure they have building plans.
How do I go about this? I suggested this before, I will declare a housing amnesty for 9 months. Under the 9 months, I will call on everybody in Ondo state to come forward, whether you have stayed in your house for 25 or 30 years it does not matter, bring something to show that you are in that house. When you bring it, a group of town planners, architect will be organized within the ministry who will help to put it in a professionally acceptable design and this will be approved at a cost that’s less than the current charge. When 20,000 or 50,000 people in akure alone are paying just 40,000 naira to get their plan, design and everything approved, within that 9 months of amnesty. It is better than having just 1,000 people coming forward to pay 170,000naira, its as simple as that. You can do the arithmetic yourself, there are over 40,000 structures in Akure that are not having plans, they will jump into this amnesty, pay 10,000 administration fee and pay the 40,000 later then we will give you a design if you don’t have one, if you have a design, you bring it and we will assess it then give you approval. By that, we would have taken the data of that structure and know the GPS location. We can from the comfort of our office say that in Akure, we have 50,000 housing units and out of it, 10,000 of them are commercial building then we can do other arithmetic on them later but when you don’t even have them or they are not within the net of the government then you continue to lose revenue. That’s what I will do differently.
Host – You did say that the ministry lack manpower for effective development control, what do you think they can do to put an end to that problem?
Guest – If I am telling you that government is not having problems with finances, I will be deceiving myself, so finance is actually the reasons that government will give at all times to say that we cannot do this or that but you must invest before you can get profit and in that, 2 levels can be abducted. First level is that you have to appoint middle level professionals, people with ND or HND holders, they are in town looking for jobs, town planners, architects, bring them in. Then there is going to be another level of what we call volunteers but they are going to be remunerated, those ones will go to the interiors, mark the house, take data of the landlord, how many years they’ve staying there, their level of income, all these will be captured and brought over. From that, government will start understanding the economics of people of his state and then plan for them.
With this amnesty, he would have gathered money then from the money that was gathered, if 2 billion is made, 10% is given back to that ministry. They will use it to fund personnel, infrastructure, utilities, vehicles and so on which will continually now be used to monitor developments. We are not monitoring development in ondo state.
Sponsor – This amnesty you are proposing sir, will you waive tax clearance certificate and CofO?
Guest – It’s an amnesty, it will be waived for the first 9 months. After the 9 months, just like VADE, when the time of the amnesty is over, you’re on your own. We will now go after you because we would have gotten enough money from those that came for amnesty to get personnel, vehicles and the likes.
Sponsor – Still on the CofO, is there any benefit you can derive from it? Not as individual, I am talking of the physical planning, you know when we talk about the environment, the bottom line of physical planning is to make the environment look beautiful but when we are now using CofO as prerequisite to get development permit, you know it might be difficult for some people…
Guest – That is why we are saying we are not supporting this. It’s not as if it doesn’t have benefit, the benefit is a derived benefit. Example, if you have the CofO on your land, you can approach the bank and get loan but it’s not everyone that’s interested in loan right? So if I am not interested and I feel like the receipt of the family and the surveyor general survey issued by government is enough for me, that’s okay. It should be acceptable.
Host – Your final words for our listeners at home
Guest – I want to beg the government and I want to beg the Executive Gov. of the state, he is a lawyer, a SAN, a Christian and someone that love the people of Ondo state so much. I think he should call those that have been advising him on physical planning matters in the state for a review.
Host – Thank you so very much there. What do you have to say our sponsor?
Sponsor – Thank you Comfort, I remember one writer called Muzenda, he said “A city without some form of transect, is like a country without a constitution, it is a breeding ground for spatial anarchy. When you have a policy that is not pocket friendly, there’s tendency that the end result will not be good for every one of us.
Host – Thanks so much and with that we come to the end of today’s program. See you next week.