Kigali Moves to Cut Building Permit Processing to as Little as Seven Days
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The City of Kigali is working to reduce the processing of building permits from 21 days to between seven and 14 days, officials said during Rwanda Architecture Week.
The City of Kigali is working to shorten the time it takes to process building permits from 21 days to between seven and 14 days, a move discussed on 8 October as part of Rwanda Architecture Week, which brought together the city, architects and other professionals involved in the construction and real estate sector.
Fulgence Dusabimana, Vice Mayor of Kigali in charge of Urbanisation and Infrastructure, said the city is working to shorten the waiting period, which can also include time spent correcting applications. “We are doing the best to shift from 21 days of waiting, which sometimes includes the correction, to 7-14 days to give out permits,” he said. He said the city is reviewing the resources used in permit processing and considering having some categories of work handled by qualified companies, and is studying the use of editable versions of architectural and engineering designs to make technical reviews easier. He did not specify when the seven-to-14-day target would take effect.
Architects at the meeting said reducing the waiting period alone would not resolve all delays. Angelo Mbonimpa, an architect, said the review process can become lengthy when comments from reviewers require several rounds of corrections and resubmissions, and that review comments are sometimes not specific enough to clearly guide applicants on the corrections required. “Reducing the review period from 21 days to seven to 14 days would certainly help,” he said. “However, I believe that faster review alone will not fully solve the problem.”
Chemi Andrew, head of the architecture department at the Institut d'Enseignement Supérieur de Ruhengeri (INES-Ruhengeri), said the different requirements that have to be considered during approval can bring a project to a standstill, citing requirements related to green spaces and other project specifications. Fred Manzi Karasira, managing director of Neza Spaces, said the permit process has improved over the years but that projects can still take 30 to 40 days to receive a response, particularly when architects are required to make repeated modifications.
Gloria Luce Nishimwe, chairperson of the Governing Council of the Rwanda Institute of Architects, said professionals and city authorities will work together to reduce delays while planning decisions are being made. She said the discussions included placing caveats on affected land to discourage people from investing in projects that may not be permitted under a final plan, as well as identifying areas where development should not take place. The city did not provide figures on permit applications, resubmissions or average turnaround time.