UDA gets tough with building approvals

All large scale buildings with a potential critical impact on the built environment have to get approval from the Urban Development Authority ( UDA) under new rules that came into effect in February.

This is after corruption and rampant malpractices in recent times when obtaining approvals for buildings, officials said. Earlier granting these approvals was vested on the respective jurisdiction of the municipal council

(MC) in the area of the proposed building, Jagath Munasinghe, Chairman UDA told the Business Times.

Way back in the late 1970s all the sanctions for buildings were with the local authorities who had jurisdiction over urban areas. "Then under the Urban D ev e l o p m e n t Authority Act certain areas were declared by the subject minister as 'urban'," he said.

As time went by these areas became larger and it was too much for the UDA to handle. So in mid '80s, the approvals returned to the local authorities/ MCs," Mr. Munasinghe explained.

But then corruption hap- pened. "So we took back some powers pertaining to approvals, etc to the UDA on large developments that have a critical impact on the built environment," Mr. Munasinghe explained further.

He added that there's a list of requirements which a building should be under where UDA approval is required.

These cover any building that is more than 4,000 square feet, that has more than four storeys, impact ( negatively) on the environment and those buildings that are on heritage, environmentally sensitive ( such as coastalareas) and sacred sites.