Muscat Municipality: Legal Awareness to Eradicate Violations in Construction Requirements
Despite the lack of awareness, violators of construction requirements in Muscat always justify that the offences they have committed occurred unintentionally due to ignorance of the law on the organization of buildings in Muscat, precisely the local Order No. 23/92 on the organization of buildings in Muscat and its amendments.
There are many technical excesses in construction field in Muscat, the most prominent are those found in non-compliance with the approved drawings in map, increasing spaces not as mentioned in maps, as well as expanding the building size from the front. Other excesses include; adding constructions on rooftops, or making structural modifications and additions within the boundaries of the building or implementing them outside the boundaries of the plot without obtaining approval from the municipality, or making additions on surfaces with unstable materials that harm public safety and distort the overall appearance.
The common excesses in existing houses that should be avoided are: changing the building colour without a permit, making sunshades and bird breeding cages on rooftops, as well failing to stick to the technical requirements for outdoor parking, and failing to make periodic home renovations. The ban comes because of the encroachment of her harm on others, and some of those excesses are reflected in the aesthetic image of the place.
Muscat Municipality enacts regulations and penalties for such technical violations; as local order No. (23/92) on the organization of buildings in the section of penalties specified a number of administrative penalties, a fine ranging from (50 to 5000) Omani rials, depending on the type of violation contained in the regulations, which have been identified to complement the organizational and awareness-raising efforts that the municipality attaches great importance to in order to reduce excesses and emphasize the need to comply with the technical requirements of the houses under construction, in addition to, the right of the municipal authorities to remove the violation and to charge the perpetrator all expenses.