Engineers in Saudi Arabia are waiting for the final stages of a study addressing engineering upgrades and new measures to review residential building plans.
It is expected that engineers will be given the authority to review the technical and structural details of the plans including tunnels, which are missing in most of Saudi Arabia’s major cities. Jeddah has had no such infrastructure requirements.
Tunnels are underground lines that hold utility cables, water pipes and other infrastructure that serves residential and commercial buildings.
Engineers will benefit and develop by making it mandatory about engineering houses to ensure that structural work is done in accordance with the building code currently in effect.
Talal Samarqandi, chairman of the Engineering Houses Commission at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the commission is about to finish the study.
“The study is about giving description of the engineering work, as well as detailing the nature of information to be contained therein,” he said. “This will help land owners know exactly where their money will be going. ”
He said that the commission has the approval of the Saudi Engineering Commission to conduct and prepare the study, which will be submitted shortly to the King.
Ibrahim Kutubkhana, deputy municipal mayor of Jeddah, said that Makkah Province council issued a recommendation that requires landowners to provide infrastructure tunnels in order to avoid the previous mistakes in old residential lands.
Kutubkhana referred to the continuous digging up of Jeddah streets every time a company needs to perform maintenance in its ground networks.
He added that engineers are working on issuing a countrywide legislation that obliges landowners to provide such tunnels before handing in lands to buyers.
Jeddah may pass residential underground utilities requirements
