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Sunday, March 20, 2005
City lacks permits for buildings in reclamation project
By Gingging A. Campaña
CEBU CITY -- City Hall may have violated its own ordinances and the National Building Code for its failure to secure building permits for the multi-million buildings and structures in the South Reclamation Project (SRP).
These include the Sugbo Municipal Hall in Kawit Island and the P10-million Association of Barangay Councils (ABC) building, which will be completed in the next seven months.
City Building Official Antonio Sanchez, also the concurrent city engineer, said his office will send a notice to the SRP office and the ABC.
Sanchez, however, said the City Government will have a hard time complying with the requirements this time because the SRP still has no certificate of title.
The title is a pre-requisite for the locational clearance, which will be issued by the local zoning board.
"Although they won't have to pay for the fees because it is a City Government project, we will just remind them of the requirements of the National Building Code," Sanchez told Sun.Star Cebu.
Occupancy
As a practice, the Office of the Building Official (OBO) will allow construction of a building once its contractor or owner has filled up an application form for building permit.
But if the applicant fails to complete the requirements by the time the building is finished, it cannot occupy the building, since the OBO will not issue an occupancy permit.
SRP manager Nigel Paul Villarete admitted that the Sugbo, the SRP's administration building, and other horizontal developments have no permits, locational clearance, barangay clearance and occupancy clearance.
ABC chief Eugenio Faelnar said they will apply for a building permit and try to process the requirements.
"But we cannot secure the barangay clearance because we don't know which barangay the SRP belongs to," he told Sun.Star Cebu.
The lack of requirements is attributed to the lack of land titles, an approved land use plan and barangay jurisdiction.
The process
But Villarete, city planning and development officer in 2002, said he issued a clearance to build the municipal hall since "it was called for, being the City's project and because the circumstances were not normal."
"There's no building permit but it has a clearance to construct. We went through the process. I wrote to myself in 2002 as planning officer requesting for a locational clearance and then I also responded to myself that the planning office cannot issue the clearance because the land use plan for the SRP has not been duly approved," he told Sun.Star Cebu.
The application for land use plan has to go through the local zoning board and endorsed to the City Council for approval.
Villarete said the Sugbo also has no occupancy clearance because "we can't impose something, which is absurd."
Sometimes we really have to be realistic about things, he added.
The Sugbo Municipal Hall was built on Kawit Island, which is now an eight-hectare portion of the SRP, by TOA Construction, a Japanese contractor that won the contract for horizontal works of the SRP.
GPS Marines, which began the construction of the P10-million ABC building only last February, still has to secure a building permit.
| Post your experiences to the Sun.Star Graduation section. Click here. | 2005-02-24 04:52:02
mcalvo - My graduation was unforgettable to me and to my classmates. I was so drunk the night before graduation. During the ceremony i dozed to the point of snooring even when i was already standing i was half sleeping. Our dean has to call my name twice and the person behind me has to push me just to wake me up... graduations are memorable...enjoy and congratulations to all graduates!
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(March 20, 2005 issue)
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