By Maduka Nweke
The Lagos State government has admonished developers who wait until government agents chase them around to comply with building regulatory codes before they can do the right thing.
The Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development tasked developers on voluntary compliance with development laws.
The Ministry urged developers in the state to comply with the existing building laws rather than wait for government’s hammer on them as defaulters.
Idris Salako, the state Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, who gave the charge during a recent stakeholders’ meeting with developers under the aegis of the Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria, Lagos State chapter, warned that obedience is better than sacrifice.
The Commissioner said that the programme was targeted at enhancing collaboration to bridge communication gap between government and stakeholders in order to cultivate voluntary compliance on the part of the developers.
Salako added that it was important for developers to get adequate information on the plans and activities of government so as to promote sustainable environment in the state in line with the T.H.E.M.E.S Agenda.
He said that government had taken many important steps towards enhancing the ease of doing business in Lagos State. “ We have taken care to ensure that all parts of the state are covered by a planning instrument as we have vigorously prepared and reviewed Masterplans and model city plans, while we have awarded nine Action Area Plans and nine Development Guide Plans to give room for the sustainable development of the State”, he said. According to him, the state government increased the number of supervisory directors and district heads, devolved the Planning Permit Approval power and adopted digitisation of processes in order to fastrack the Planning Permit process. “We have also released the lands under Government acquisition in some parts of the State. This move, I am sure, will allow Developers to tidy their Approvals in the affected areas”, he said.
The Special Adviser to the Governor on Urban Development, Ganiyu Ayuba, stated that the vision of the state government for the built environment could best be achieved in collaboration with developers, whom he urged to apply the gains of the discussion to their activities in the built environment.
For seamless and continuous engagement with stakeholders, the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development (MPP&UD) developed the MPP&UD mobile app to assist information sharing and realtime engagement with features such as the ePP registration, ePP guidance, uploading Planning Permit and a database of Registered Professionals and Stakeholders, tagged the Marketplace.