The Practice of Building Demolition In Addis Ababa City: Current Practice Assessment and Regulatory Framework Development

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Date

2022-06-01

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Addis Ababa University

Abstract

The Addis Ababa city Administration has been demolishing old buildings and clearing up slum areas for urban renewal purpose for quite some time now. This is being carried out either as part of a government development plan or due to strong interest of foreign investors to participate in the housing and hospitality sector. In addition, increased value of land invited local private property owners to upgrade existing structures in to more income generating spaces aiming at maximizing benefits. However, the practice is not coping up with the technological advancements in the area; rather it is highly dependent on the experience and skill of individuals involved. The fact that Ethiopia doesn’t have a code of practice for building demolition has paved the way for the practice to be performed in non-structured manner. This research started aiming at achieving three objectives; the first being examining the current practice of building demolition in Addis Ababa city. This was done by using selected cases to detect the loop holes through direct observation and interviewing representatives of parties involved in a building demolition project. Furthermore, an in-depth document analysis was done on existing local protocols; ranging from policies to codes and regulations, that can serve as a starting point to develop the framework. As a result, the gaps were analyzed in five major categories related to stakeholders management, planning and methodologies, safety, environment and waste management, productivity and performance recording. The second objective goes on with examining the international trend of the sector through intensive review of literatures so as to derive key performance indicators to evaluate the local practice against later on. For this, it was necessary to benchmark certain countries with best practice, such as Kenya, India, Hong Kong and the Netherlands. Afterwards, standard factors extracted from the study were categorized under generic sections after critical adaptations are made. The third and final objective of this research was to develop a guiding regulatory framework aiming to serve as a milestone point for the regulatory authority. The developed framework describes the main actors of the building demolition ecosystem and states the major responsibility of each entity for the success of the cycle. Finally, it concludes by summarizing the findings of the research in such a way that the practice lacks proper emphasis from the regulatory body in terms of standardizing work items like contracts and safety protocol strictly to follow while performing the act. In addition, qualification of professional is another area which needs big work in order to rescue the system being reliant on personal skill. As far as the recommendation points are concerned, the study suggests for the upper regulatory body to draft a standard code of practice so as to set the minimum requirement of professionals and the other stakeholders. In addition, it was also recommended that regulatory body to have a distinct organ dedicated to keeping the performance record of the sector in order to make future plans and structure demolition acts in more coordinated manner. At last, studies related to waste management and recycling, pattern against city expansion and application of prefabricated elements vs demolition are suggested for further research. Key Words: Building demolition, Construction Industry, Building, Code of practice, Regulatory framework

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