BAGUIO CITY – The City Buildings and Architecture Office (CBAO) disclosed that the issuance of building permit covers all constructions of buildings being implemented by either private individuals or concerned government agencies, including the city government.
Arch. Homer Soriano, chief of CBAO’s building permit processing division, said that based on the initial findings of their inspections conducted in the different existing and under-construction private and public structures in different parts of the city, almost 90 percent of government buildings do not have the required building permits contrary to the provisions of Presidential Decree (PD) 1096 or the National Building code as amended.
CBAO officials were invited by the members of the City Council to shed light on a query posed by an anti-crime and corruption watchdog on whether or not building permit is only required of private individuals constructing their commercial or residential structures.
The CBAO official explained that private individuals and concerned government agencies are required to secure building permits for their construction activities to avoid being penalized for violation of the pertinent provisions of the National Building Code.
He said appropriate notices were issued by the CBAO to owners of private and public structures initially found to have no building permits for them to process the same so that they will not be appropriately charged by the said office.
CBAO is the office of the city government mandated to process and issue the building permits applied for by private individuals and concerned government agencies prior to the construction of their proposed structures in the city.
Earlier, the city government embarked on a program to fastrack the issuance of building permits to applicants pursuant to the government’s overall mandate for the ease of doing business among city governments and concerned government agencies in the different parts of the country.
Under the newly approved scheme, CBAO will release to the applicant the building permit for simple structures within 5 days, within 15 days if what had been applied for is a complex building permit and 30 days if the application is for a highly complexed building permit.
Soriano said the CBAO will continue to inspect all private and public buildings in the city to ascertain their compliance to the building permit requirement so that owners of structures found to be without permits will be issued the appropriate notices of violation for them to comply with existing laws, rules and regulations and to prevent them from being assessed penalties for their identified violations.
He urged concerned government agencies and private individuals wanting to construct residential or commercial structures in the city to process first the required building permit from the CBAO to ensure the compliance of their structures to the prescribed standards of the National Building Code and other related rules and regulations for them to have a safe and sound structure.
By Dexter A. See
