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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