PHILIPSBURG, SINT MAARTEN – The Ministry of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure (VROMI) and non-profit Nature Foundation Sint Maarten have announced the completion of manual and training to address internal concerns about the civil works permit procedure. Carried out by the government advisory group SOAB with funding from the RESEMBID grant program, the assignment has paved the way for clearer guidelines for addressing activities that impact the environment.
“Although a civil engineering permit is required to carry out large civil works, the application and evaluation procedure lacked clarity,” said the Head of Policy Department at VROMI. “This assignment helped VROMI departments identify bottlenecks in the internal evaluation process and develop a more streamlined process. The use of this manual will lead to better collaboration and communication within VROMI and with citizens. Overall, this assignment supports a well-informed decision-making on civil works permits.”
Over 20 civil servants in the Policy, Infrastructure Management, Inspection, Staff Bureau, Domain Affairs and New Projects departments, along with four members of the Nature Foundation, contributed to the development of SOAB’s 44-page manual and two appendices. The manual provides a comprehensive guide to internal procedures for processing civil works permit requests, including definitions, triggers, timeline, roles, and required documents. Its roll-out was preceded by a training session for high-level department staff.
Civil works permits must be obtained from the Ministry of VROMI for any activities that alter terrestrial, coastal, and marine terrain, whether on public or private property. This includes dredging, excavation, deforestation, demolition, and more. These permits also serve as prerequisites for building permits. However, the absence of a standard operating procedure for the internal evaluation of civil works permits resulted in confusion across the Ministry, leading to instances of approved or overlooked permits without proper infrastructure evaluation and environmental oversight since Article 28a of the National Ordinance on Spatial Development Planning (Landsverordening Ruimtelijke Ontwikkelingsplanning) was reintroduced in 2021.
The ambiguity surrounding the permit evaluation procedure was cited as a key obstacle to advancing the sustainable management of Sint Maarten’s marine and coastal ecosystems by the COastal REsilience Needs Assessment (CORENA) project, a RESEMBID-funded collaboration between the Ministry’s Policy department and Nature Foundation. This led to the assignment’s development by the CORENA team and contract with SOAB in October 2024.
“For years, environmentally unsustainable civil works activities have taken place – often unauthorized, but sometimes with a permit that disregarded existing laws and policies. Responding to these incidents was time-consuming and frustrating when we realized we couldn’t do anything about it,” added a representative of the CORENA project at the Nature Foundation. “This manual is a necessary and significant step towards fixing that process, to ensure civil works permits will undergo far more rigorous evaluations and reflect national standards. It won’t solve everything immediately, but we can’t move forward without it.”
The manual was underpinned by legislative frameworks such as the National Building Ordinance and Building Code, the Nature Conservation Ordinance, and the Amendment on the Spatial Development Ordinance. Applicable policies and guidelines were cited as well, such as the Nature Policy Plan 2021-2025, Hillside Policy, Beach Policy, and various infrastructure design standards. New to the framework was the addition of the 2009 Tree Policy for the preservation of historic trees, as well as biodiversity hotspots and areas of a sensitive ecological nature, defined by the Nature Foundation using data gained from the 2024 and 2025 CORENA terrestrial and marine biodiversity inventories.
The definitions and standards for civil works permits will be made available to the public in the next few months in the form of a handbook, and apply to both private and public property. In the meantime, developers, homeowners, construction companies, and private citizens should inquire about the need for a civil works permit before executing any environmentally impactful activities to avoid fines. Violators are subject to stop or removal orders. Contact the Permits department at [email protected].
The assignment was funded by the Caribbean OCTs Resilience, Sustainable Energy and Marine Biodiversity Programme (RESEMBID), a €40M program financed by the European Union and implemented by Expertise France, the development cooperation agency of France. For more information, visit https://resembid.org/.
