Development control to sanction owners of unoccupied buildings

The Department of Development Control, Abuja Metropolitan Management Council (AMMC), has indicated plans to sanction developers of unoccupied structures in the FCT.

Mallam Yahya Yusuf, the outgoing Director of the department made this known on Wednesday in Abuja.

Yusuf said that the spate of completed but unoccupied structures in the territory had become worrisome prompting the department to sanction such developers.

“The international best practice is that no completed structure is expected to remain unoccupied for more than six months.

“We have submitted a proposal to that effect and we are awaiting its endorsement before we begin implementation.

“Sanctions that will arise from that proposal will make it unprofitable for developers to allow their houses to remain unoccupied for too long,” he said.

The director complained that prevalence of such unoccupied buildings needed to be addressed because it had given room for speculations.

“I hear a lot of uncomplimentary rumours surrounding these unoccupied structures and it is in the interest of developers to ensure that these rumours do not spread by putting their houses to use.”

He said that the department had initiated certain programmes to sanitise the process of development and building approvals.

“You can see that removal of illegal structures is becoming a norm in most big cities in the country, and most of the states are looking up to this department for best practice.

`We ensure that integrity tests on buildings are now a norm, and this will help the buildings to stand the test of time.

“Before a developer is allowed to continue a structure that has been in construction for a long time, the test is carried out to ascertain the status of the structure.”

Yusuf said that in the case of encroachment on peoples’ plots, the title owner would be made to bear the cost of removing illegal structures on such plots.

“In the past, the cost of reclaiming such a plot was born by the encroacher.

“But we realised that the title owner could also be complicit for not developing them on time; we now build the cost of such retrieval on the cost of building approval,” he said.