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Poor funding, impedes effective operation of housing regulatory offices- expert

By Thompson ABISOLA

A Town Planner, Mr Ayo Adejumo, on Thursday identified poor funding as an obstacle to effective operation of the property industry and its regulatory offices.

Adejumo, also a former Vice-President, Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (NITP) Lagos Chapter, made the observation in Lagos.

He said that lack of fund had made the Lagos State Physical Planning and Development Authority and other appropriate bodies responsible for processing building plan approvals to sometimes fail in discharging their duties effectively.

Adejumo called on state government to boost financial capacity of housing developments and the regulatory offices to enable them to execute their statutory functions better.

He said that some inspections and documentations that were supposed to be carried out before and after a building plan approval was granted were not always performed.

Adejumo said that the contents of a building plan documents were not always obeyed by developers due to lack of proper supervision by the responsible authorities.

According to him, the building laws and codes state that a building boundary must not be less than six metres away from the road and three metres away from the surrounding fence.

“The developer will observe the laws in the building architectural designs, applications and other documents he submits and the approval will be granted to him/her.

“But on getting to the site, developers will deviate from what he put down on paper to build below the metres and rules which the law stipulates.

“This is why there is little or no parking space in almost all the compounds in the city of Lagos.

“Cars are parked on both sides of the roads and in the streets, contributing to traffic jams in Lagos city,” he said.

Adejumo said that town planners were supposed to inspect the site before and after the building plan was approved to ensure that the designs were in conformity with the proposal and approved plan.

“But, the appropriate authorities most times failed to visit the site before approving the building plan or even follow up with the projects after granting its approval.

“Most times, this is due to non-availability of official cars to convey them to the site and lack of other working facilities that can make the work easier,” Adejumo added.

He suggested that appropriate authorities and the town planners should be present at the site of any approved building project right from the commencement day of its foundation to the completion.

The town planner said the idea was to ensure that the designs conform with the approval standards and order of the area where the land was located.

He urged the state government to continually empower the authorities that handles building plan approval processes to enable them to discharge their duties efficiently.

 

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