Lagos State seals estates, commercial property over building permit

As part of efforts towards restoring sanity and safety in the building and construction industry in Lagos State, Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA) has commenced a massive clampdown on property owners without building permits.

The Guardian reports that the four-day exercise, which started last week in collaboration with the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development began in Eti-Osa Local council of the state after the expiration of a month deadline of notice issued to developers and land-owners to obtain necessary building permits from relevant government agencies.

According to The Guardian, LASBCA General Manager, Dotun Lasoju who led the team with a back up of the Nigerian Police force, said the exercise is necessary to enforce the law on estates in the state.

He said that the issue of safety of buildings and the citizens can no longer be compromised, lamenting that some of the estates have prevented officers of the state building control agencies from carrying out the lawful duties.
“We find pockets of few around where works had been stopped and construction workers kept building in defiance of interventions of LASBCA.

These are unacceptable conducts from building owners and developers. Building construction is now a partnership, owners at inception invite LABSCA to participate in construction, get necessary permits so that we can get it right in built world and achieve a win-win situation”.

Lasoju stated that sanctions for non-conformity by defaulters ranges from having to contend with the sealing of the estates or building premises to penal fees where approvals were not even obtained in the first instance.

“Penalties can be very severe and these will be taken as the individual merit and as the case may be. More importantly, we want to make sure that we deal with recalcitrant. We have spoken to architects, engineers as well as bricklayers who participate in construction so that building owners take LASBCA as a friend”, he said.

According to him, the process of stage certification has tremendous benefits for building owners so that at the end of the day, they could be issued certificate of fitness for buildings.

He explained that the collaboration between LASBCA, its sister agencies like LASPPPA was an approach for developers to get the whole gamut of planning right, from the process of obtaining the layout permit to the point of commencement of construction which is controlled by LASBCA.

The Guardian reports that the Director, Development Permit Department of LASPPPA, Adeshina Akin, also speaking, explained that government has invested several billions of naira in preparing the Lekki Development Master Plan; hence it was the duty of the building control agencies to ensure that development along the axis was tailored according to the plan.

Akin, a town planner observed that the developers and homeowners were building without recourse to planning permits and the only way to control that was to ensure that individual and corporate organisations comply with law of the land.

Source: The Guardian