UDA awaiting PM’s approval to review existing multi-storey buildings

The Urban Development Authority (UDA) is yet to receive approval from the Prime Minister’s Office to review the approval process of existing multi-storey buildings, to identify how many of them are non-compliant with building and planning regulations, the Daily Mirror learns.

Following an investigative piece by the Daily Mirror in February this year on violations of building and planning regulations of construction projects in Colombo and the suburbs, the UDA wrote to the Prime Minister, seeking approval to launch an investigation to audit whether developers had followed the regulations for their already approved construction projects, in order to direct the building owners to make them safe.

However, when the Daily Mirror inquired, the UDA’s Colombo Metro Region Director Lalith Wijayaratne said he had done his part by informing the higher-ups whose approval, he said, is mandatory for such an investigation. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa is yet to attend to it.

The recent building collapse in Kandy where a couple and their two month old baby died has created a public outcry and also shed light on the building regulations. Commenting on the 34-year-old outdated planning and building regulations, he said the UDA is currently working on a set of new regulations, which they expect to introduce from January, 2021.(Piyumi Fonseka)