the resettlement plan could not be completed within a reasonable period unless all PWD work scheduled under its normal programme together with all private sector work was totally suspended. This would unavoidably result in a severe shortage of building labour and materials. So to achieve the time target, it was made necessary to obtain a licence for all new buildings from the“ Competent Authority” who had powers to impose any condition as it might consider necessary. Hence, it was not until the“ Briggs Plan” for resettlement had been completed that architects or other submitting persons were concerned with the requirements of the then-existing building regulations.
But with the resumption of more private sector work after the completion of“ Briggs Plan”, submitting persons began to feel the impact of building control measures enforced under the many diverse regulations of the various Town Boards, Sanitary Boards or municipalities. Thus, professionals applying for statutory permits or approval found it extremely tedious, confusing as well as time-wasting to have to ascertain the peculiar requirements of the authority he had to submit plans to before he began his work, or to make assumptions only to discover when the plans are rejected, that he had not been conforming to the requirements of that particular authority. Simply put, besides being a nightmare and an utter waste of time and patience, it was a serious impediment to redevelopment which had become a necessity after the long period of inactivity.
Then, starting with the Kuala Lumpur Municipal area which had become the centre of building activity and having the largest number of architects, the situation fast became a source of dissatisfaction. By the early 50s, the FMSA( Federation of Malaya Society of Architects and predecessor of the present PAM) voiced the dissatisfaction of their members to the authority that the Kuala Lumpur Building By-Laws were inadequate. This resulted in two members of FMSA being assigned to serve on the Kuala Lumpur Municipality By-Laws Committee.
This Committee was responsible for the Kuala Lumpur Municipal( Building) By-Laws 1958 which came into force on April 17, 1958. These By-laws continued to be in force in Kuala Lumpur until they were replaced by the Kuala Lumpur Municipal
( Building)( Amendment) By-Laws, 1975 which were gazetted on June 26, 1975.
At this time in the early 50s, practising architects began to encounter problems when they submitted plans for buildings to various local authorities throughout the country. The regulations and by-laws then applicable were either not available – being out of print, or the provisions varied from one authority to another and were inconsistent, antiquated or too restrictive. This then became increasingly burdensome. Architects had to overcome the first problem by resorting to borrowing the documents from their lawyer’ s libraries( and copies could only be made by the laborious process of hand-copying them as this was before the advent of Xerox), and to ascertain aspects of the by-laws really challenged the creativity of the submitting person to argue his way around it.
So, even before independence, members of the architectural profession( who were then only very few in number) had expressed their dissatisfaction and frustration to whoever would listen to them. This was seen to be a serious hindrance to the development and modernisation process of the post-war Malaya. To recap, the main complaints were:( a) non-availability of the by-laws( b) their lack of uniformity throughout the country, and( c) their antiquated and inadequate provisions. This resulted in the following series of actions which are briefly recounted below.
Pre-Independence Period
1957 FMSA submitted a case to the Minister of Natural Resources and Local Government that there was an urgent need for a set of updated uniform building by-laws and regulations to replace the various antiquated sanitary boards ordinances and municipal by-laws.
Post-independence Period
LATE 1950s TO EARLY 1960s Government took action and appointed W. G. Wicks, a Building Surveyor in private practice to prepare the“ Uniform Building By-Laws” for the whole country. As progress on this assignment was both slow and not visible, FMSA continued to urge Government to speed up the progress of these much-needed uniform building bylaws, the lack of which was already seriously
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