PHILIPSBURG:--- Construction has begun on the Philipsburg Marketplace without a valid building permit, and while the sound of machinery may feel like progress, MP Darryl York says what is actually happening on that site is illegal. At the most recent public Parliamentary meeting, the Minister of TEATT confirmed on record that no permit had yet been granted and that construction would begin once one was granted. That permit still has not been issued. The equipment is moving anyway. And if you are one of the 400-plus families who have been waiting years for your own building permit, watching your loan get canceled, your construction costs climb, and your life sit on hold, MP York says you already know exactly what is wrong with this picture.
There are over 400 families, small business owners, and everyday people who have been waiting years for their building permits. Years. While they waited, construction costs rose, and their budgets no longer covered what they had planned to build. Pre-approved loans were canceled because banks require a valid permit. Lives put on hold. Businesses that never opened. Homes that were never built. These people did everything right. They submitted their plans. They paid their fees. They waited and kept waiting because the rules said they had to. Now they are watching the government build without the very document it has yet to provide them. Rule for one. Rule for all.
MP York is clear that he supports the development of the Philipsburg Marketplace and the recent urgency behind it. Sint Maarten needs it, vendors need it. But he has said since day one in Parliament: do it the right way, or don't do it at all.
It is not the people's fault, he argues, that the government held a groundbreaking two years ago without a permit in hand. It is not their fault that the design kept changing and the permit kept not coming. And the answer to those failures cannot be to simply ignore the rules that every ordinary resident is forced to follow. If the government can build without a permit, on what grounds can an inspector stop a resident from doing the same? On what authority does a minister lecture the private sector about compliance when the ministry itself is not compliant? You cannot enforce rules you are not willing to follow.
MP York's call to the Government is direct: pause, obtain the permit through the proper process, and then build. Not because he wants to see this project delayed, but because the integrity of the system that over 400 families are depending on and binded too, cannot be selectively applied. Fix the backlog. Streamline the process. Give people their permits.
You do not fix a broken system by exempting yourself from it.
Rule for one. Rule for all.