ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has decided to receive certificates of structural stability from owners of all commercial buildings of Islamabad.

According to officials of the authority, buildings that were constructed on the basis of a building plan passed by CDA were built in accordance with the building code of 2007.

However, they said buildings constructed outside sectors, particularly in rural areas, never got their building plan approved from the CDA, therefore, the civic agency had no idea about structural stability of these buildings.

“Now, we are going to issue a public notice, directing owners of all commercial buildings to submit structural stability certificates of certified engineers. Otherwise we will take action,” said an officer of the CDA.

Action to be taken in case certificate not obtained from certified engineer, official says

It is relevant to note that until 2017, there was only one Building Control Directorate to deal with matters relating to buildings located in CDA’s own sectors. Later, a new directorate was set up to manage buildings in other sectors and last month, Building Control III was formed for rural areas.

Sources said recently, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) expressed displeasure over CDA’s inefficiency regarding unauthorised commercial buildings outside sector areas.

They said CDA had no record of numbers of commercial buildings that were operating in rural areas, therefore, the civic agency decided to issue a combined public notice to direct all owners of commercial buildings to submit structural stability certificate that must have been taken from engineers.

On the other hand, the civic agency failed to stop unauthorised construction in sector H-13 and E-11 and now both sectors are dotted with large numbers of unauthorised commercial and residential apartment buildings.

“We are going to issue public notice in next few days to direct all owners of commercial building that are located outside of sectors to get the structural stability of their buildings checked from Pakistan Engineering Councils’ registered engineers. The building owners are required to submit certificates to CDA,” said a senior officer of CDA, adding action will be taken against owners who will not comply with the directive.

It must be noted that no attempt was made to stop unauthorised construction beyond planned sectors until 2017, which resulted into mushroom growth of unauthorised construction of commercial buildings at almost every nook and corner of the city - now decided to issue notice to all buildings.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2022