BUILDING CONTROL (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister for National Development (Mr Lim Hng Kiang): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The current Building Control Act was promulgated in 1989 to strengthen the law in respect of building control. The Act, first of all, enhanced the powers of the Building Authority in regulating building works and safety of buildings. It provided for the checking of structural plans by Accredited Checkers, the supervision of construction works by qualified persons and the periodic inspections of buildings by structural engineers. The Act also increased the penalties for offences.

After implementing the Act for the past six years, experience shows that certain provisions of the Act need fine-tuning in order to achieve better control of building works.

I shall now highlight the key refinements of the Act proposed in this Amendment Bill.

First, to expand the coverage of the Act. There are three statutory boards, namely, HDB, MRTC and PSA, which have been granted exemption from submitting plans for their building projects to the Building Authority for approval. The exemption was given to the HDB to enable it to speed up its public housing programme. The MRTC was similarly exempted from submitting plans to the Building Authority for the implementation of the MRT system. The PSA was exempted under the PSA Act from submitting plans to the Building Authority for port related structures within the port area.

There were valid reasons for granting exemption to the three statutory boards which specialise in their own area of work. Over time, these three boards have accumulated track record and specialist expertise in implementing the types of developments under their charge.

Sir, the Amendment Bill proposes to bring the building projects of the three boards under the ambit of the Building Control Act, and to regulate the developments of these boards by setting up a formalised mechanism within the three boards to control their own building works. Building Control Units (BCUs) will be set up within these statutory boards, as independent units, to check and approve their in-house building plans. To ensure effective control and consistency, the BCD will oversee the operations of the BCUs. It will conduct audit checks to ensure compliance with the Act.

The Bill seeks to empower the Building Authority to delegate sufficient powers to qualified persons in the BCUs of these three statutory boards. When the new system is in place, the existing Exemption Orders will be revoked.

Second, to improve the Accredited Checker system. The Accredited Checker system was introduced to provide an independent check of structural plans and design calculations. The Building Authority's role in the system is to carry out audit checks. The Bill seeks to make it clear that the Building Authority may approve structural plans which had been checked and certified by an Accredited Checker without having to check them again.

Currently, while an Accredited Checker is required to be appointed, the Act is silent on who should appoint the Accredited Checker. The Bill seeks to make it clear that the person for whom the building works are carried out shall appoint the Accredited Checker, and prescribes the duties of the Accredited Checker and the penalty for failure to carry out the duties.

Under current provisions, an Accredited Checker is not allowed to check structural plans for building works for which he has been responsible for the design or construction in any capacity. This is unnecessarily restrictive. The Bill seeks to allow a professional engineer who was previously involved only in minor alterations to a building to be appointed as an Accredited Checker for subsequent alterations to the same building. Similarly, such an engineer will be allowed to be appointed as the structural engineer for any subsequent periodical inspection of the building.

The Bill also seeks to empower the Minister to permit certain statutory boards to use their in-house Accredited Checkers to check the structural plans, and to use their structural engineers to carry out periodical inspections of the boards' buildings.

Third, the Bill seeks to empower the Building Authority to disapprove badly prepared plans, without having to issue written instructions and directions to the qualified persons. This will encourage qualified persons to prepare their plans properly in the first instance. The plans will also be disapproved if qualified persons fail to comply with the written directions and resubmit the plans within the specified period. The Building Authority will be empowered to revoke its approval if any information given in the application is later found to be false.

Fourth, in non-subdivided buildings, the Building Authority has encountered difficulties in getting the flat owners to jointly appoint a structural engineer to inspect the building. This Bill seeks to empower the Building Authority to require flat owners to jointly appoint a structural engineer to inspect the building, and to carry out the works recommended by the appointed engineer.

Mr Speaker, Sir, it is an offence to occupy a building without a Temporary Occupation Permit or a Certificate of Statutory Completion. It should also be an offence for the owners of such buildings to permit these buildings to be occupied. However, this is currently not stipulated in the Act. This Bill seeks to make it an offence for the owners of such buildings to permit them to be occupied if they do not have the requisite permits.

Other refinements in the Bill include the deletion of those provisions which have been superseded by the Fire Safety Act, and new provisions relating to the use of computer generated documents.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the Building Control (Amendment) Bill is necessary to fine-tune the provisions of the Act to achieve better control of building works.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [Mr Lim Hng Kiang].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.