Ministry involves CDA in formulating rules for Islamabad’s apartment buildings

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Housing and Works has decided to involve CDA in finalising condominium law and rules for apartment buildings in Islamabad.

Sources said a committee was already working on finalising the condominium rules. However, the executive board of the Federal Government Employees Housing Authority (FGEHA) last week decided to include the CDA as well in the committee as apartment buildings are located across the city and the civic agency is the main stakeholder.

The new law/rules will cover maintenance of buildings including shared spaces, fund management, protection of rights of individual owners and conflict resolution amongst residents.

Condominium is a type of residential property where each unit is owned by an individual, but shared common areas are jointly owned by the residents. In Islamabad, condominium residential is mainly in apartment buildings.

Condominium rules will cover maintenance of buildings, fund management and protection of individual owners’ rights

In the absence of any strict rules and regulations, in many apartment buildings, owners have also eaten up common areas with extra construction.

In some apartment buildings, the owners have even constructed extra unauthorised apartments in basement and rooftops to mint money. Several such buildings, besides other areas, are located in E-11.

The owners first get approval of their building plans from CDA and after selling apartments make violations of the building plans with extra construction. In majority of areas in Islamabad, particularly in rural areas, the owners even without getting building plans approved constructed high-rise apartment buildings.

The sources said during the meeting, the executive board was informed that Prime Minister’s Office had constituted a committee to consolidate recommendations on incentives for low housing, improve access to finance and develop public-private partnership model under the chairmanship of the minister for economic affairs. The committee recommended to the housing ministry to prepare condominium law/rules in consultation with CDA.

The sources said a senior joint secretary in the meeting of board appreciated the concept of condominium rules and said since the apartments’ construction was on the rise in the capital it was imperative that condominium rules be prepared at the earliest. Subsequently, the board decided to expand the committee, incorporating additional members including the director general planning of the CDA.

This committee is tasked with completing the draft law and rules within 15 days.

The committee is headed by Additional Secretary Housing and comprised officials of law and justice division, planning commission, CDA, Islamabad Capital Territory administration, FGEHA and others.

The board meeting was informed that currently only the Sindh condominium Act 2014 was in force whereas, the Punjab government had drafted Punjab Multi-Storey Buildings (Rights of Ownership and Maintenance) Act 2019, which was yet to be approved.

The FGEHA is in the process of formulating condominium rules for its high-rise apartment projects. Additionally, the Ministry of Housing and Work was assigned the task of preparing the law and rules for apartment buildings in Islamabad.

It may be noted that the ministry of housing has limited numbers of high-rise projects while CDA’s jurisdiction spreads across the federal capital.

Though checking legal status of the apartment buildings is not the mandate of the committee, sources said most of high-rise buildings in Islamabad were operating without having completion certificates from CDA.

Also known as occupancy certificates, these documents deal with the structural stability of a building among other matters.

Completion certificates deal with fire and safety equipment, building structure, the implementation of building plans and so on. Sources in the CDA said nearly all high-rise buildings in Blue Area and other parts of the city had no completion certificates while residential apartments were also being used without occupancy certificates.

They said the CDA sold around 30 plots in urban areas where apartment buildings were constructed, and their owners occupied them in connivance with some CDA officials without obtaining the certificates.

The sources said the auctioned plots included 11 in F-11, five in G-11, four in F-10 and one in G-8.

“Of these apartment buildings, only few have a completion certificate,” a CDA engineer said, adding there were also a large number of apartment buildings in rural areas.

Published in media, March 24th, 2025