Legal tools for evacuating dangerous buildings are “time consuming and ineffective”, Limassol EOA chairman Yiannis Tsouloftas stressed on Friday, following the collapse of a balcony on Thursday that promoted the evacuation of the whole block.
Tsouloftas said there were approximately 1,100 potentially dangerous buildings in Limassol, 60 of which should be evacuated.
Buildings in Limassol are being inspected, resulting in so far 370 cases being assigned to private civil engineers, who have prepared 296 reports.
To date, Tsouloftas said, the EOA has reviewed technical reports for 157 buildings, which have since been declared dangerous. Of these buildings, 60 require immediate evacuation, while two have already been demolished.
Legal tools, he added, were “time consuming ineffective”, and gave the example of a Yermagoyia building with an unexecuted evacuation order pending since May.
“The process of modernising the legislation must be accelerated, in order to solve the problem with the country’s aging buildings,” Tsouloftas pointed out.
Areas of the legislation requiring upgrading are, according to Tsouloftas, the management of dangerous buildings, the management of jointly owned buildings, the operation of management committees of blocks of flats and the regular technical inspection of buildings.
Information about buildings declared dangerous in Limassol is available on the EOA website’s WebGIS digital service.
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