The facts on the Arbor/Rosewood case. Its long but worth the read. The injunction was granted on the basis that the building had not been certified as safe. In the ruling where the injunction was lifted, the judge deemed the building safe given the fact that we now had three engineers (one being DMRCs) visit the building and reported nothing negative. We also obtained T&TEC, Fire, OSHA and WASA also indicated that all standards were met and will give certificate once T&C is obtained. At this point let me point out that all judgements are available online for the public to see. The appeal court overturned the decision on the basis that safety must include factors such as T&C and Highways Division approvals and MOE registration. That the structural integrity of the building is too narrow a view to deem the building safe. To date our MOE registration is missing a health certificate which ironically is given by the DMRC; the body that has us in court. And T&C approvals are waiting on Dr. Teewarees signature. All other departments have signed off and he is the final person holding back that approval. We were told that Teewaree was out of the country but is back and will address the file on his desk this week. We have over 200 signatures supporting our move but it is my view that a scientific approach be taken to the issue of residents upheaval because there is no information to say total number of Maraval residents, for/against/neutral. Until then, this point cannot be fairly stated as a reason for withholding any approval. There is no proof that the majority of residents are against us being there and in fact the number of children in the area exceeds the number of school seats available, so the argument that they already have schools in the area is also weak. The process to register a school changed twice within the period we were in court. When safety was clearly not an issue they turned to MOE. The only reason the AG got involved on the basis of MOE was to save face. The judge erred legally by granting the injunction in the first place. The DMRC has no legal authority to take someone to court so the injunction was illegal and thats the only reason the MoE and AG jumped in. While we were in court, an email went out asking to schools to register. We were not included in that email (coincidence?) The email came from the MOE telling schools that the requirement to occupy the building for 6 mths no longer applied and they gave schools three months to line up all the ducks needed to become registered. FYI, a list of registered schools can be found on the Ministrys website and it noticeably has several schools missing, but hey, whos checking anyone else right? A further change was made dropping the requirement that schools needed T&C approvals to register. This lends to the reasonable assumption that other schools in fact also do not have T&C approvals and sticking to this requirement would leave too many schools vulnerable. Now that all those requirements have been dropped we now have no reason not to be registered. And as stated above, the DMRCs health certificate is the ONLY pending item holding back the MOE registration. And I close with the question on everyones mind. Why didnt we get approvals in the first place? Well thats simple. The building was originally zoned for a school and to date has never been re-zoned to residential use. In fact there is a law that T&C has 4 years with which to file against landlord and Tennant and given the fact that for the last 14 years the building had been allowed to operate commercially, for public use now takes away their legal opportunity. I will still stay away from saying that we do not need T&C approvals because that matter is the matter before the court, which of course means on the flip side that it will not be fair to say that we need them. The court will decide in March whether or not they were in fact needed and by that time wed have them. Disclaimer: these are my private views. I may be subject to incorrect interpretation and I hope that, with everything else, you do due diligence before coming to a conclusion.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 22:12:44 +0000
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