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Investigating the Effect of Municipality Article commission of 100 Decisions

in Controlling Construction Violations

(Case Study: the Third Area of Khorramabad Municipality)

Farhad Zand1

and Morad Toolabi2

1Department of Social Science, Payame Noor University, I.R.Iran.

[email protected]

2Student of Geography, Department of Social Science, Payame Noor University, I.R.Iran.

Abstract – Municipality- article commission of 100 is one of the specific

institutions and judicial branches that have been set up with the purpose of

preventing construction violations. The municipality with its officers can prevent

the construction of buildings that do not have a permit or those constructed against

the content of the permit, whether the building is located on a surrounded land or

on a not-surrounded land. According to investigations, however, in the last two

decades construction violations have had an increasing rate every year, the most

important causes of which could be: the inconsistency of criteria with the real life,

the weakness of control and monitoring systems, vague and unclear rules, the

attitude of municipalities to penalties as a source of income, etc. This study tries to

investigate the role of Khorramabad's municipality article commission of 100

verdicts in controlling and preventing construction violations. Studying the

construction violations that were investigated in the period of 2006 - 2010 showed

that there were considered in the municipality -article commission of 100, about

6460 violation cases where construction violations have occurred more and more

from year to year. Also, a larger number of the commission decisions are in regard

to the issuance of penalty verdicts, which is another evidence of the

unsuccessfulness of the commission of this municipality in controlling construction

violations.

Key words – Article commission of 100; construction violations; municipality;

Khorramabad

1 Introduction

Housing is the first need for living in cities and on the other hand urban building and construction

itself creates relationships with municipalities, because the existence of municipalities and laws that

regulate urban fabrics and affairs is vital.In the aftermath of the 8-year war against Iran, investments in

building sector grew up strongly. According to the studies made in municipalities article commission

of 100s, more than half of the total national wealth has been spent in the form of residential,

commercial, industrial, hygienic,... buildings over the country. The lack of accurate and continuous

monitoring over the constructions and the extreme focus of owners on more profit have resulted in that

technical principals and quality requirements are broken in a significant portion of constructions and

several residential towns and large complexes are constructed by some governmental ministries. Given

the management of such institutes and organizations and also the lack of legal support, municipalities

are not free enough to prevent such kind of constructions (Masoum&Aliabadi, 2001, 31-84). In

addition to these cases, constructions that were carried out without a permit or during night in

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International Journal of Basic and Applied Science,

Vol. 03, No. 01, July 2014, pp. 1-8

Zand and Toolabi

2 Insan Akademika Publications

confiscated lands (because of the special situations governing the aftermath of the Islamic revolution)

raised a lot of people from rags to reaches in a short period of time ( Masoum, Aliabadi, 2001, 31-84).

The article commission of 100 is the legitimate reference for consideration and announcement of

construction violations in the approved scope of the town. After the investigation of municipality

officers and sending the reports in the form of specific forms known as "violation form" to the

commission, the commission enters the process of investigation. construction violations apart from not

having a permit or not conforming to the issued permit are usually accompanied by other additional

violations as well; cases like breaking urban, technical, or hygienic principals, each of which has its

own rules and regulations, which should be considered carefully in the report sent from the

municipality to the commission, so that the commission members during the consideration of the cases

taking account of the committed violations can make appropriate decisions. Since constitution, this

sub-judicial commission has experienced different ups and downs, so that in some periods the

investigation of construction violations was left to other organizations; however, given the last revision

in this law, this commission is again recognized as the lone legal institution for following construction

violations in all urban areas (Abbas-zadeh, Abdolreza, 2010: 3 - 81). Not performing constructions on

the basis of urban and technical principals causes a lot of construction ingredients, as national

resources, to be wasted. In addition, living in buildings where urban and technical principals have been

neglected results in the anxiety of residents and provides hard situations for living (Mokhtari et al.,

2009, 3).

According to this article, owners of lands and buildings located in the urban area or within its vicinity

should receive a permit from the municipality prior to any construction act or separating land and

beginning the construction of buildings. In different notes of this article legislators have tried to

consider all types of construction violations and include the ways of preventing or dealing with them.

After over three decades since the approval of the given rule and the amplitude of control and

monitoring over constructional activities, it seems that the foregoing division is very general in cases

like breaking urban principals and very detailed in other cases such as the forbiddance of building

parking garages (Keshavarz, 2002: 5).

2 Statement of Problem

Increasing growth of population and the excessive development of cities brought about a lot of

problems especially in developing countries, including the unprecedented increase of land prices in

cities. Naturally, in such a situation lower-income groups head to the low-cost lands of the suburbs for

residence, which often lack the basic standards required for a usual life, and since the residents can not

afford legal constructions and receiving permits, they attempt to violate construction rules and

construct illegal buildings (Taheri, 2006: 4).

It is generally believed that urban administrators for the reinforcement of urban equilibrium have

attempted to provide urban proposals and set urban regulations from different angles. The enforcement

of zoning regulations and the criteria regarding the land use depends on the measures that are taken in

every city or urban area (regarding the issuance of construction permits and monitoring constructional

and urban activities and functions) (Hahsemi, 1900: 3).

The physical incongruence seen in the third zone of Khorramabad and also the inappropriate

appearance of some other zones are likely to be related to the immigrant reception of this city as well

as the lack of a strong monitoring over constructions and the inappropriateness of the rules existing in

this regard. In the recent years, the surroundings of Khorramabad's zone 3 have received the highest

portion of immigrants compared with the other zones of the city, and it is why it is susceptible to more

construction violations. What is considered here is that how preventative has this commission been in

regard to construction violations?

Zand and Toolabi International Journal of Basic and Applied Science,

Vol. 03, No. 01, July 2014, pp. 1-8

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3 Hypothesis

Given the presented questions the following hypothesis is considered:

It seems that Khorramabad's municipality article commission of 100 with the highest number of

penalty verdicts has not played such a preventative role in controlling construction violations.

4 Research Literature

Since year 1966 that the article commission of 100 joined the regulation of municipalities, a lot of

studies have been conducted for investigating the role of the article commission of 100 in the

prevention of or the prevalence of construction violations. Among different studies and discussions

undertaken regarding urban rules and regulations and the books written on the subject, "Municipality

Article commission of 100” (Abbas-zadeh, 2010), " Construction Violations" (Ghoushji, 1998), and

"Urban Planning" (Ahmadi, 1990) could be mentioned.

Madanian (2009) in his paper "Municipality Article 100: the Only Means for Investigating National

Construction Regulations" studies examples of construction violations and suggests that aside from

Municipalities rules, specifically the article 100, which other organizations could also stand against

breaking national building regulations.

Bahmanifard and Kalantari in their paper "Investigating the Effects of Municipality Article

commission of 100 Decisions on Construction Violations" studying real cases of construction

violations, showed that how demolition verdicts in the initial commission were changed into penalty

verdicts in the appeals commission, which itself broadened construction violations.

Ismailnejad in another paper "Role of Article commission of 100 and Its Notes in Controlling Urban

Constructions" investigated the role of the commission in constructions since the onset of the work of

this commission and concluded that decades after the approval of the article commission of 100 rule,

only one of the goals embedded in this rule had been relatively fulfilled and it was noting but receiving

permits from municipalities for any construction activity.

5 Materials and Methods

This study is an analytic research in which the required data are collected by reviewing the cases

referred to the article commission of 100 of Khorramabad's zone 3 municipality between the years

2006-2010 through a documentary and field study. In order to investigate the causes and consequences

and also make use of the ideas of pundits and professionals, field studies have been carried out in some

part of the research. The statistical population in this research is Khorramabad's zone 3 and the cases

referred to the municipality article commission of 100 in the time period of 2006-2010.

6 Municipality Article commission of 100 and It’s Role in the Prevention of

Construction Violations

Municipality article commission of 100 is one of those cases that, although very common and useful,

only a little research has been done about.Iran's legal system is generally divided into administrative

and judicial sectors. These sectors themselves are divided into general judicial and special judicial and

also legal and criminal sectors. Special legal sectors are divided into the sectors that are whether

related to the ministry of justice or not related to it. Administrative sectors are also split into general

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and special sectors. Therefore, it could be said that the article commission of 100 is among special

administrative sectors in the legal system of the country (Jahangir, 2004).

Article 100 is the sector that is responsible for construction violations and the given verdicts are

carried out by the municipality and other responsible authorities. Article commission of 100 has started

its work in different municipalities according to the note of the article 100 revised in 1973, the

requirements of which had been formalized even before the Islamic revolution (Shahri, 2010).

Municipality, whether or not the construction violation is considered in the article commission of 100,

is not allowed to compromise with the violator against the rules. Also, it can not comply with

compromise with beneficiaries against the rules. The verdict of the article commission of 100 should

not be necessarily carried out the same and in different cases the municipality can avoid carrying it out

by considering the request of the violator within the scope of existing regulations and take other

measures (Bahmani-Monfared&Kalantari). In the recent years, with the increase of the problems of

lands and their value added, it is seen that the rate of construction violations has also taken an

ascending course subsequently. In fact, the rate of violations overtakes the number of issued

construction permits. Therefore, in many cities, the commission has not been able to play a

preventative role about construction violations. Knowing that most of the verdicts of the commission

are around penalties, construction violators show the least attention to the observance of rules and

regulations.

7 Introduce of Khorramabad

Khorramabd is a township in Lorestan province. It is located along the main roadway connecting

Tehran to Khuzestan, and therefore is of high communicational and strategic importance. According to

the last census the county has a population of 348216 people. Khorramabad is the capital of

Khorramabadtownship and Lorestan province and one of the ten counties of Lorestan. It covers an

area of 6233 square kilometers at longitude 48 ° 21׳ and latitude 30 ° 43׳, with an elevation of 1478

meters from sea level and. Township Population of over is 521964. The Gelal River splits the city into

two separate parts. The southern areas of the city, which have been developed in the recent decades,

are mainly settled by rural immigrants.

8 The Most Important Violations Discovered in Khorramabad City and The Rules

Related to Each One

8.1 Constructing Buildings without a Permit

Any type of construction that is carried out without a written permit from the municipality is called a

permit less building. Even if the processes of the issuance of the permit and the payment of the taxes

are properly done by the applicant, but he/she does not attempt to receive the permit and starts off the

construction, the building is still known as permitless. If such a building is placed within the urban

area it is considerable in the article commission of 100. The lack of a record of landing does not

prevent the case from being considered in this commission (Shams: 2011). In these cases, the

commission gives verdicts from two different view angles:

1) If a permitless constructed building is not breaking urban, technical, and hygienic principals, the

commission can give a verdict of penalty. But, if the constructed building apart from lacking a

permit breaks the urban principles as well, the commission can reach a verdict of demolition;

2) If the permitless constructed building is revisable in the manner of urban principals, the

commission might vote for a regular penalty only provided that those principals are going to be


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observed, except for the buildings that have been constructed in forbidden areas or areas without

an approved plan. In such cases the regular verdict for violation would be complete demolition

(Monfared, Kalantari, 2011). Most of these kinds of violations occur in the suburbs of

Khorramabad city (zone 3).

8.2 Excessive Density

In the note of article 7 it has been emphasized that monitoring architects are responsible for

continuously monitoring the construction operation of the building that is built under their

responsibility in terms of consistency with the characteristics embedded in the accompanying permit,

plans, and technical calculations and finally testifying its congruence with the permit, plans, and

technical calculations at the end of the project; otherwise reporting the case to the commission.

Excessive density violation includes all types of interior violations that fall within the responsibilities

of the article commission of 100 of the municipality. In this type of violation the commission, taking

account of the existing conditions, and in the case that stopping the construction is not necessary, can

arrive at a verdict of penalty that should be neither less than at least half of nor more than triple of the

trading value of the building for each additional square meter (Shams, 2011). This type of violation in

Khorramabad is usually seen in the areas with less monitoring, in the suburbs, and sometimes in the

buildings constructed by unprofessional mass-producers. In most of the cases, in villas and houses

with big yards, the owners have attempted to construct additional buildings separated from or

integrated to the main building, which are usually used as storage or even as a place for keeping

animals in the suburbs.

9 Investigating the Article commission of 100 Verdicts in Khorramabad's Zone 3

Municipality (2006-2010)

According to the investigations and documentary studies, the rate of construction violations in

Khorramaabad in the time period of 2006-2010 is as the following.

Table 1.The abundance of the article commission of 100 verdicts between years 2006 and 2010

Year Frequency

2006 920

2007 1377

2008 1117

2009 1141

2010 1907

The results of the study of violation records shows that the rate of violations and cases considered in

the municipality article commission of 100 each years has been more than the previous year, so that

out of the total violations occurred between years 85 and 89, about 14.2, 21.3, 17.2, 17.6, and 29.5

percent go to years 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010, respectively.



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Figure 2: The diagram of the abundance of the article commission of 100 verdicts between years 2006

and 2010.

Table 2.The types of the verdicts given by the article commission of 100 between years 2006 and

2010.

Corrective Demolition Verdict Fines Year 91 2 827 2006

293 3 1081 2007 179 16 922 2008 247 14 880 2009 304 6 1597 2010

On the whole, from 2006 to 2010, 6462 cases were considered in the initial and revision commission,

about 82.1 percent of which received fines, about 0.63 percent demolition verdict, and about 17.2

percent corrective one.

Figure 3.The diagram of the type of the verdicts given by the article commission of 100 between 2006

and 2010.


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As it is obvious the fines is the most common verdict, while it has not showed such a preventative

ability against construction violations and the increasing rate of violations in consecutive years shows

that this verdict is very little compared to the profit that violators make out of their violation. Also, the

conducted investigations show that most of the violations are discovered merely when the building is

sold and real estate agencies make inquiries from the municipality, which clearly is indicative of the

weakness of the monitoring of constructions.

10 Conclusions

As seen in the abundance table and in the diagrams, the hypothesis of the study is true and the

statistics of construction violations and records referred to the municipality article commission of 100

each year has been more than the previous year, except for years 2008 and 2009. It could be easily

concluded that the verdicts of Khorramabad's third zone municipality article commission of 100 have

not been able to take an effective preventative measure regarding the construction violations occurring

in this city. One of the causes could be the weak control and monitoring of the municipality and the

construction engineering organization over constructions, so that this weakness causes the end of

construction to be any way issued and leads profit-seekers to violation.

Another cause is the incongruence and inconsistency of urban plans with economic and social

situations. The majority of Khorramabad's construction violations happen in the poor sections of

society and in the suburbs, which usually host rural immigrants who leave rural areas with the dream

of a better life in the city, and because do not enjoy a compelling economic basis, violate construction

and urban rules and regulations. The southern areas of the city are the destination of immigrants

coming from nearby villages and constructing humble houses there, which has created one kind of

slum life.

On the other hand, most of the verdicts issued by the municipality article commission of 100 are

deconstruction verdicts. In the notes of the article commission of 100 the conditions have been

mentioned that in which case destruction verdict or action is required, some of which, to name but a

few, are: (1) In cases the building has urban, technical, or hygienic problems, the commission is

required to give a demolition verdict;(2) The owner has to transfer the determined penalty fund to the

municipality account within the specified time period or else the municipality is required to refer the

case to the same commission again and request a deconstruction verdict, in which case, the

commission will also attempt to vote for deconstruction (Municipalities and Rural Managements

Organization, 1389: 97); (3) If the commission's verdict requires changes and modifications in the

building, the owner needs to implement the required items within the time period issued by the

municipality, which is issued to the owner along with the commission's verdict.

Nonetheless, it is seen that most of, or in other words more than 90 percent of, verdicts issued in

Khorramabad's municipality are penalty verdicts, a large number of which have not been paid by the

owners at all, so that the secretariat of the commission has subsequently provided a long list of unpaid

penalties. Therefore, the goal set for the existence of the article commission of 100, which is

preventing and controlling construction violations, has not been fulfilled as expected. The results of

this research is in accord with Kalantari's (2010) and Madanian's (2009) studies, as they have

somehow come up with a similar result as well.

Another important element playing role in the non-efficiency of preventative factors regarding

construction violations is the vagueness of a number of the rules of the article commission of 100, the

most important of which could be deciding about the necessity or unnecessary of deconstructing a

building.



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Zand and Toolabi


11 Suggestions for Dispelling or Reducing the Construction Violations Problem

Given the produced results and the analysis of the factors playing role in the occurrence of

construction violations in Khorramabad, the most important steps that could be considered in this

regard include:

1) The first step in the course of reducing construction violations is the appropriate and systematic

management of urban lands, as the value of land is currently ascending faster than any other thing.

For this purpose, all of the institutions, organizations, and practitioners that are somehow active in

urban contexts and play a role in the realization of urban development plans, should be in a good

cooperation and coordination with each other in making decisions, observing the rules and

regulations, and standing against violators;

2) Prediction of other sources of income for municipalities so that they look at violations as a urban

problem and not a financial resource;

3) Proportioning the amount of penalty funds issued by article commission of 100 s for violators to

the degree of their violations, so that they do not look at violations as a source of making profit

and these penalties can act as serious barriers on the way of violators in upcoming years;

4) Reinforcing the administrative power of municipalities through the revision of a number of rules

concerning construction and the deconstruction of violating constructions;

5) Making more coordination among the organizations concerned with housing and urban services

such as registration departments, water and power offices, and municipalities in order to prevent

construction violations;

6) Educational and cultural measures for making people aware of the short- and long-term

consequences of the expansion of violations in the society.

References

Masoum J., Aliabadi J. (2002), Management of municipal construction, Municipalities Magazine

(New Edition), 33: 5-10.

Abbaszadeh, A.R. 2010. Commission of the 100 Municipalities law.Institute of Urban and Rural

management, first publication.

Mokhtari, A. 2009.The role of Article 100 of the Commission's vote on the prevailing building

violations. Report journal,61.

Keshavarz, H.R. 2002. Laws, guidelines, questions, circulars of Deputy of civil of Lorestan Governor's

Office .Booklet of Lorestan Governor's Province, 1.

Hashemi, F. 2007. Municipal Law and Urbanism Law.Journal in Tabriz Faculty of Social Sciences.

SamadiGhoshchi, Z. 1998. Building Infractions in the Iranian legal system.Jungle Press, Ishafan, Iran.

Bahmanimonfared, H. Kalantari, M. 2012.Effect of Decisions of the Municipal Commission Article

100 in Control Building Infractions.Fourth Conference on Planning and Urban Management.

Ismaeilynezhad, A.R. 2009. The role of Article 100 of the Municipal Law and Amendmentsits. Journal

of Information ,education,37.

Jahangir, M. 2009. Municipalitieslaws. Didar Publication, Tehran,Iran.

Legal Institute Shams. 2011. Violations of the Commission Article of 100 of the Municipal.

http://www.shamslawye22s.com

Khorramabad Municipality.(2013). Statistical report of the commission Article of 100

municipalities.Annual reports Khorramabad Municipality.Korramabad, Iran.

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