Zoning urges public to attend outreach

The Zoning Office is encouraging the public to attend the many outreach activities it is hosting so they will understand the intricacies of the Saipan Zoning Law of 2013.

Zoning’s administrator Therese Ogumoro said yesterday that they have been doing many of these outreach activities in schools.

She said the last outreach was at Saipan Southern High School. They will be having another outreach at Kagman Elementary School with the Parent Teacher Association for all Kagman schools that also include Kagman High School and Chacha Oceanview Middle School.

“We want to address and gain the public’s understanding, to educate them more about the changes in the law and we would like to hear their concerns and that is our main aim this year,” Ogumoro said.

Zoning will start implementing the law as professionally as possible and providing outreach is part of the office’s way of reaching out to residents and businesses.

“We are trying to go one by one,” Ogumoro said.

She said that Zoning has jurisdiction over all developments on construction buildings, both residential and commercial. Zoning is also in charge of land use in particular zoning districts. They also regulate signs, public nuisance section that includes junk cars, damaged and hazardous buildings, regulation of non-conforming structures built prior to February 2008, as well as parking, general building designs, landscape, lightings for parking, and street lights.

“Our office is busy taking up applications and meeting with clients and helping them,” Ogumoro said. “We also have a pre-application process with developers where we help applicants by doing a pre-application meeting and assisting them and advising requirements.”

Zoning planner Maryann Arriola said they want to inform as many people as possible about the new zoning law during their outreaches.

“The purpose of the presentation is to inform residents and businesses about the Saipan Zoning Law of 2013 and to educate them on the law,” Arriola said.

According to Ogumoro, Zoning has also started its islandwide inspections.

“It is still ongoing and we’ll continue through the following weeks on sign violations, unpermitted constructions, and trying to resolve those with responsible parties,” Ogumoro said.

She noted that inspections next week will cover the area from the middle part of Saipan to the north end.

“We are spending a lot of effort providing public courtesy calls before actual notice of violation fee is imposed,” Ogumoro said.