LAHORE, July 26: The five city district governments in Punjab and their development authorities have been directed to adopt the recently-approved model building bylaws within 15 days to ensure uniformity of building control within their limits.
The direction in the shape of policy guidelines has been given by the provincial local government department to the city district governments of Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Gujranwala and Faisalabad, and their development authorities.
The new model building bylaws had recently been approved by the chief minister in view of the confusion regarding haphazard construction, especially of multi-storey buildings, in these big cities.
According to the guidelines, any amendment to the bylaws by any particular local council or development authority within a city district government could not be made without its (govt’s) prior approval.
Under the Local Government Ordinance of 2001, it was mandatory for all town administrations to seek approval of imposition of building fees from their respective CDGs. But, the guidelines said, most of the town administrations had not obtained such approvals and were indulging in illegal recovery of building fees and other charges in the name of NOCs and other heads.
This practice must be stopped and no unauthorised fee should be charged while approving building plans, the guidelines said, mentioning that only the newly-approved building fees should be charged at the following rates: residential Rs2 per sqft and commercial Rs5 per sqft. (The rate would apply up to 500,000sqft).
Beyond that the rate would be one-fifth. The new industrial rate is Rs3 per sqft which would apply up to 100,000sqft. Beyond that it would be one-fifth.
The prescribed building fee would be collected by the CDGs which would retain 15 per cent as collection and administrative charges and transfer the remaining 85 per cent to the town administrations or the development authorities concerned.
The city district governments, town municipal administrations and the development authorities were directed to adopt these rates and get an approval from the respective local councils and governing bodies within one month.
The guidelines said building control and enforcement by different authorities and towns within one city had also created confusion. This had already resulted in more than 1,000 illegal constructions in Lahore alone.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan had taken a serious notice of such illegal activities of the builder mafia in connivance with the town planning wings of town administrations and the development authorities.
Therefore, the guidelines reminded, it had been decided by the provincial government to put the town planning and building control functions under the unified administrative and financial control of the CDGs through the new office of EDO (town planning and building control).
The Punjab government had also decided to provide funds to strengthen the enforcement mechanism, including creation of new posts, recruitment of structural engineers, outsourcing important functions of the building control and purchase of new machinery, for the enforcement cells.
The guidelines want the CDGs to assign top priority to the capacity building of the newly-created offices of EDO (town planning and building control), and submit detailed plans of their capacity building within one month to the urban unit of the Planning and Development Board and the local government department for approval and funding.
The CDGs were asked to give government land on reserve price for construction of car parking plazas, not to charge the building plan fee from them and waive commercialisation charges on conversion of residential plots into car parking plazas.