The Cyprus Scientific and Technical Chamber (CSCTC) is advancing an initiative to create a platform for recording dangerous buildings as well as for providing basic information electronically with the characteristics of each building, as its President Konstantinos Constantis told CNA.
On the occasion of the collapse of part of an apartment building in Limassol, which claimed the lives of two people, CNA contacted Mr. Constantis to inquire about the Chamber's next steps in order to bring order to the issue of the suitability of buildings and structures throughout Cyprus.
In his statements to CNA, Mr. Constantis said that the platform will provide information about each dangerous building and, therefore, will provide the answer to the question of which building, based on documentation, is dangerous and to what extent it is dangerous.
"In order to have a common language, we suggested that we, as ETEK, undertake to create the electronic platform and, with an electronic building identity register, provide all the information correctly, uniformly, and in a structured manner," he said.
The platform will provide information on whether buildings or apartment buildings are fully or partially habitable, the degree of risk, i.e. whether simply shoring is needed, whether a wall needs to be demolished to remove the risk, and whether a visual inspection form has been completed with a structured, uniform methodology.
"We, as the Chamber, invited everyone to utilize the visual inspection forms that the Chamber has on its website so that we all speak the same language and have the same approach. That's why we said, we need to create this electronic platform, to digitally guide how the data will be posted and with the click of a button, someone can geographically locate buildings that pose a risk to both residents and neighbors," he said.
On the platform, he then explained, there will also be categorizations, meaning it will be shown which apartment buildings are dangerous internally for residents but not for neighbors, which ones are dilapidated and therefore dangerous for residents and neighbors, which ones need some kind of support on balconies, etc.
"This means having a proper database, which unfortunately we do not have today," he said.
Asked who will undertake the creation of the platform and with what funds, Mr. Constantis said that ETEK will undertake it with funds from the Ministry of Interior. At the moment, he said, ETEK has begun setting up this platform, recording exactly what is needed, the categorizations, the methodology for evaluating buildings, as well as how unsuitable buildings will be notified and made public to the public or to the Deputy Ministry of Tourism.
Asked whether assistance in the creation of the platform will be requested from the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy, Mr. Constantis said that at this stage he expects the IT technocrats of ETEK to inform him about the process that should be followed to create the Platform.
He added that there may also be cooperation with the Deputy Ministry, while ETEK is already in consultation with the Department of Land and Surveying, which maintains a similar type of platform, on which the Chamber's platform can be built.
"We are interested in speed, we will not engage in time-consuming procedures that will delay the creation of the Platform," he said, and noted in response to the issue of the timetable that the goal is for the platform to be available as soon as possible.
Responding to another question, Mr. Constantis said that the goal is to have a structured way of posting all this information, which should be constantly updated. He added that next week there will be a meeting with the EOAs to discuss how all this data will be posted and by whom.
