Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has decided to strictly enforce building bylaws across the city, including in private housing societies.

According to its 1960 ordinance, the CDA is supposed to regulate buildings across the federal capital. However, in the past, the civic body has only focused on the developed sectors, ignoring a significant portion of the capital where buildings are being constructed without any prior approval.

However, the civic body has now bifurcated the responsibilities between its two directorates: Directorate of Building Control-I and Directorate of Building Control-II.

According to a notification issued on July 3, the Directorate of Building Control-I will regulate the developed sectors of CDA. Whereas, the Directorate of Building Control-II will regulate the approved private housing societies and sectors developed by Federal Employees Housing Foundation. CDA officials criticised the move. “If the Directorate of Building Control-II is going to regulate approved private housing societies, then who will be responsible for checking illegal development in unauthorised or unapproved housing societies?” they asked.

“Illegal construction, including high-rise buildings, continues on a massive scale in various parts of the city, including Park Road, E-11, H-13, Banigala, Bhara Kahu and Lehtrar Road. Who will stop this?” they asked.

When contacted, CDA Planning and Design Member Asad Mehboob Kayani said: “We are going to clarify the things by distributing responsibilities among relevant formations as per rules and regulations.” “Illegal housing societies will be tackled by the Planning Wing, while protection of green areas and national park areas will be the responsibility of the environment wing,” he said. “Successive managements never upgraded the building control section to deal with the mushrooming in the capital’s suburbs. We have at least started the process. We will cover the whole capital in phases,” he said.

So far, the Directorate of Building Control-II has not been fully operational. It does not even have the required staff and facilities to operate. However, sources told Daily Times that top CDA management, especially Administration Member Yasir Pirzada, were committed to strengthening the directorate. New staff will be deputed in the coming days.

Talking to Daily Times, newly-appointed Building Control-II Director Muhammad Shafi Marwat said: “The incumbent management has decided to implement building bylaws in all of Islamabad, but in phases. In the first phase, we are only focusing on approved housing societies and sectors developed by the housing foundation.”

“I am confident that we will control illegal constructions and enforce building bylaws in assigned areas subject to the availability of required workforce,” he said.

However, the directorate is going to face difficulties in doing so as dealing with private housing societies, ie Bahria Town or Gulberg, will not be easy.

Published in Daily Times, July 9^th , 2017