THE Honiara City Council (HCC) will soon conduct its inspection of buildings in Honiara.
In a statement, the City Clerk office has advised all residential and commercial building owners that the Council shall be carrying out inspection of buildings starting from within the Central Business District (CBD) area of the city and later to the outskirts of the city that are within the city boundary.
“This action shall be conducted pursuant to section 17 of the HCC building by-law (the building Ordinance) by which the councils building and Environmental and Health inspectors shall or may enter into your premises at any given time to inspect and make formal recommendation reports of the status of your building.
“The council wishes to have buildings situated within the city to be of proper standard that is fit for human occupation and presents a formidable look for the city.”
The council requests cooperation from each residential and commercial building owners in due course of this action.
Meanwhile, under the HCC demolition and illegal development control it stated out that, if you (anyone) build within the Honiara Town Boundary without a Building Permit and Planning Approval, or make illegal changes to your building, the Council can order your building to be demolished.
“If a building has been built but deviated from the approved plan, the Council will issue you with a “Stop Work Notice”. This means no work is to be carried out while the matter is to be solved.”
If actions are not taken by the building owner/occupier, the council may:
– Demolish and remove the building
– Demolish and remove part of the building.
– Change the building as required.
As part of the council process of demolishing illegal developments, it reveals that this applies to developments that do not follow the Building Permit, Planning Approval and/or the Building Ordinance.
Stop Work Notice – This notice directs you to stop from doing further construction work to the building(s), constructing retaining walls, cutting of trees and excavation.
Demolish Notice – First notice for twenty eight days to demolish your building.
Further demolish notice – This notice gives you a further fourteen days to demolish your building after the expiration of the 28 days’ notice
Final Demolishing notice – This is the final demolition notice and is serves for five days to demolish your building which has no Building Permit.
After the expiration of the final demolition notice, the Council will demolish the building and any cost associated will be charged to you.
If the notices for the occupier/owner to demolish their illegal development are not followed, the Council will then carried out the demolition.
The Clerk will sign off the demolition approval and the Council Law Enforcement will carry out the demolition of the illegal construction.
If you don’t want your constructions and buildings demolished by the Council, then you need to demolish it yourself within the time period given.
If you don’t want your constructions and buildings demolished, then abide with the requirements of the Honiara Building Ordinance and the Town and Country Planning Act.
By STEPHEN DI’ISANGO
