ISLAMABAD: After a 6.4 magnitude earthquake was felt in the capital on Friday, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) issued a statement saying that it has sent out 500 notices to commercial building owners for violating building by-laws, including by operating buildings that have not been issued completion certificates.

These certificates are a prerequisite for occupying buildings and deal with matters such as structural stability and fire safety arrangements.

Since the last time an earthquake jolted Islamabad, this September, the number of apartment buildings in the capital with a completion certificate has doubled to two. Including commercial high-rises, three buildings in the capital have been issued completion certificates.

According to sources in the CDA, there are two kinds of unauthorised buildings in the capital; the kind that had their building plans approved by the authority but did not obtain completion certificates before occupying them, and those that were built without approved building plans in the first place.

The capital’s rural areas are dotted with the latter.

As far as high-rise buildings go, only the State Bank building has been issued a certificate.

More than 500 notices issued to building owners for violating by-laws, CDA official says

Sources said the cases of the UBL building and Ufone Towers are being processed by the CDA.

“It is a bitter reality that almost all the apartment building and high-rise buildings in this city are functioning without the required certificates,” a CDA officer said.

The Margalla Towers apartments in F-10, which collapsed in the 2005 earthquake, killing 70 people, were also occupied without a completion certificate.

The CDA officer said that under the CDA Ordinance, the authority is supposed to regulate all the buildings in the capital.

However, the CDA did not move beyond the urban areas until 2016 or 2017, he said.

He added that the CDA connected new utility connections to no-objection certificates (NOC) from the authority to prevent unauthorised construction in the rural areas a few years ago.

This move did halt construction in the rural areas to some extent, he said.

But some CDA officials said this was no way to treat unauthorised construction and the CDA should instead approve building plans for the rural areas to encourage legitimate construction.

CDA spokesperson Syed Safdar Ali said that the civic authority recently compiled data on all buildings for the first time.

After completing due process, action will be taken against people operating buildings without completion certificates, he said, adding that 500 notices were issued to owners of buildings over the last few weeks for not fulfilling procedural requirements.

The civic authority’s statement said action (of issuing notices) was being taken in light of a survey conducted by the building control section directorate to determine building violations and to compile data on commercial premises in the city’s sectoral areas.

More than 3,000 commercial premises in Blue Area, markazes, class three markets and petrol stations were inspected during the survey, the CDA said.

In light of the data collected, compoundable and non-compoundable violations are being segregated so action can be taken according to building by-laws.

In addition to sending notices, a few premises were also sealed.

The statement said owners of premises who have not yet obtained completion certificates or had building plans approved are being compelled to complete formalities to do so.

This exercise will be result in revenue generation with respect to compoundable violations, it added.

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2019