DM strictly monitoring buildings for safety

Khalid Mohammed Saleh Al Mulla, Director of Buildings Department at Dubai Municipality, said the department would strictly monitor existing buildings for commitment to the laws and requirements of construction.

“The owners and tenants need to preserve the buildings as per rules and not to make changes or additions to buildings without permission,” Khalid said.

He said these procedures exist to ensure safety of the changes and additions whether they commensurate with the type and location of the building, and also to ensure implementation of changes in a safe and secure way to prevent construction accidents.

“Building Inspection Section works on the distribution of areas of Dubai to the geographic segments, which will be inspected periodically. The directions issued by the section are only for alerting and request to make the required repairs. There will not be any penalty except in case of refusal to make the necessary changes. These violations have a negative impact on the safety requirements in buildings in terms of lack of fire exits and lack of ventilation and lighting,” he said.

He also noted that the Building Inspection Section provides a number of services to building owners and the public, including implementation of requests for building check up, preparation of reports and certificates to the concerned authorities, responding to the communications received in connection with violations.

Jaber Al-Ahmed Al Abdullah Al Ali, Acting Head of Building Inspection, said that the section issued 3,854 notices to offending premises in 2011, which fell by 55 per cent compared to 2010 as a result of awareness campaigns carried out periodically by the section through mass media, where the section carried out 33,000 field visits to discover the commitment of buildings and facilities.

He praised the role of strategic partners of the municipality from various local departments for the enforcement law and local orders governing construction in the emirate, where 1,111 orders for service disconnection were made last year, while 743 services were re-established for buildings that corrected the offences.

The section received 12,669 technical reports, an increase of 10 per cent compared to the year 2010 as a result of the launch of e -building penalty system to cope with developments and meet the requirements of customers during a short period. Complaints and comments registered through the hotline 800900 reached 1,784  and 98 per cent of them were addressed during the same period

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.