Evolution of the planning system in Mauritius

Paper Presenter: Yashwaree Baguant-Moonshiram, Lecturer Planning as an "informal activity" related to the development of estates, town and villages has been carried out since colonisation in Mauritius. However, Planning as responsibility of government has developed only since the enactment of the Town and Country Planning (TCP)Act in 1954. Therefore, planning can be considered to be quite recent although there existed legislation and regulations - the Building Act and Building regulations 1919 regarding building control. In 1954, the TCP Act was enacted due to the "laissez-aller" of that time which resulted in haphazard development along the main roads leading to ribbon development. The government decided that there was an urgent need to prevent undesirable development of land in the interest of economic and socio-well being of the country. This formed the basis of the TCP Act 1954 through which development rights went to the state. This act set out the framework of the planning system and it was in force till 2004 when the new Planning and Development Act (PDA) was passed. The year 2006 was a major milestone in the field of planning in Mauritius as the Business Facilitation Act (BFA) was approved. With the enactment of the this law, any person who intends to start any business as from the 1st October 2006 needs to apply to the Local Authority for a Building and Land Use Permit which replaces the Development Permit (previously issued by LA) and Building Permit (previously issued by LA in municipalities and the Ministry of Public Infrastructure in rural areas.) The BFA was designed on the concept of self adherence and "putting people first". One of the main "changes" is that for small industries, the time limit for entertaining an application for a permit is three working days whereas for any other development the time limit is 10 working days. In the past, the time limit was not really strict and many applicants were penalised. Once the applicant had filled in his application, the LA had to seek clearances from different ministries or from other departments depending on the nature of the site or the nature of the development. For example, if a development was carried out near a river, clearance was needed from the Forestry Department, sometimes the nature of the development required a clearance from the Ministry Of Health and Quality of Life. This used to take a lot of time and there was delay in the processing of these applications. The fragmentation of powers created a lot of hassle while processing all applications as there exist numerous legislations, guidelines and policies, which are directly or indirectly linked to planning. The BFA aims to remedy the shortcomings in the planning sector by implementing strict time limits and by streamlining the applications. Since the enactment of the BFA the time limit has been greatly reduced and is being closely monitored. But for some people, the time limit is too strict and not sufficient enough to ensure a good appraisal of the development to be carried out. For these people, the BFA is minimising the importance of planning in order to stimulate economic development - and this may consequently lead to "bad planning".