Section 2
Interpretation
—
(1)
In this Ordinance—
“advertisement hoarding” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“aggregate” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“air-well” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“alterations” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“approval plan” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“accredited checker” means a qualified person registered as an accredited checker under this Ordinance;
[Ins. Cap. A224.]
“approved” means approved by any person or body whose approval is required by this Ordinance or any regulations made hereunder;
“arcade” includes verandah;
“architect” means any person who is registered as an architect under any written law for the time being in force in the
State relating to the registration of architects and who under that law is allowed to practise or carry on business as an architect;
“Board” means the Sarawak Building Board established under Part IA;
[Ins. Cap. A224.]
“ASHRAE” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“balcony” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“base” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“basement” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“building” includes any house, hut, shed or roofed enclosure, whether used for the purpose of human habitation or otherwise, and also any wall, fence, platform, septic tank, underground tank, staging, gate, post, pillar, paling, frame, hoarding, slip, dock, wharf, pier, jetty, landing-stage, swimming pool, bridge, railway lines, transmission lines or tower, cables, rediffusion lines, overhead or underground pipelines, or any other structure, support or foundation;
“building plans” means plans that include site plan, key plans, floor plans, sections and elevations as set out specifically in any regulations made under the Ordinance;
[Ins. Cap. A224.]
“building line” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“business premises” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
*“BS” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
*“BSCP” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“ceiling” means the covering to the underside of floor joists or ceiling joists or floor slabs excluding in all cases any supporting beams, and where no such covering exists means the underside of floor joists or roof cellars or ties excluding any supporting beams;
________________________________________________________
*The British Standards and Code of Practice referred to in this Ordinance refer to the latest current edition. In the event that a new BS or Code of Practice is being issued, which replaces the existing
BS or Code of Practice completely, a time frame of at least two years from the date of publication of the document will be allowed for the current BS or Code of Practice to be used before switching completely to the new standard.
“Chief Inspector of Buildings” means the person appointed under section 27A to advise the Government on the safety of buildings and to assist local authoirites on the exercise of their powers under this Ordinance, and includes a Deputy Chief
Inspector of Buildings;
[Ins. Cap. A52.]
“column” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
[Sub. Cap. A52.]
“Competent planning authority” means the State Planning
Authority established under Part X of the Land Code [Cap.
(1958 Ed.)] or such person or body to whom the powers and functions of that Authority have been delegated;
“Court” means a Magistrate Court of competent jurisdiction;
“dead load” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“depth” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“detached building” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“developer” means any person, body of persons, company, firm or society who or which engages in or carries on or undertakes the business of development of buildings or providing moneys for development or purchasing or partly developing and providing moneys for purchasing buildings;
“dwelling house” includes a building or tenement wholly or principally used, constructed or adapted for use for human habitation;
“earthworks” includes any act of clearing of vegetation or forest area, excavation, levelling, filling with any material on any land, or the removal or transport of rock materials therefrom, or any act (including felling of trees, on any land, piling and foundation works carried out during construction) which alters in any manner the topography, contour, level or features of any land for the purpose of building development;
[Inst. Cap. A52, Am. Cap. A224.]
“engineer” means a person who is registered as a professional engineer under any written law for the time being in force in the State relating to the registration of engineers and who under the law is allowed to practise or carry on the business of a professional engineer;
“fire authority” means the officer in charge of the relevant
Fire and Rescue Department or any officer authorised by him in that behalf;
[Ins. Cap. A224.]
“external wall” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“factory” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“fire wall” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“flat” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“flat roof” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“flood level” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“floor” includes any horizontal platform forming the surface of any storey and any joist, board, timber, stone, concrete, steel or other substance connected with or forming part of such platform;
“footing” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“footway” includes footpaths or verandah-ways at the sides of streets;
“foundation” means a system or arrangement of foundation units as footing, raft or pile through which loads from a building or structure are transferred to the supporting soil or rock;
“garage” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“godown” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“ground storey” means the lowest storey of a building below ground level to which there is an entrance from the outside on or above the level of the ground at the front of the building;
“green building” means a building that is certified as a building that is environmentally responsible throughout its entire life cycle from planning to demolition;
“green building certification body” means a body that is registered with the Board under this Ordinance;
“green building practitioner” means personnel registered with the Board under this Ordinance;
“green building rating tools” mean the tools used for rating of green buildings;
[Ins. Cap. A224.]
“habitable room” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“hardwood timber” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“headroom” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“height”, in relation to—
(a)
a room means the vertical distance measured between the finished floor level and the underside of the ceiling excluding the thickness of the plaster;
(b)
any storey means the vertical distance measured between the upper surface of its floor to the upper surface of the floor immediately above it;
(c)
a wall means the vertical distance measured from the base of the wall to its highest part or, in the case of a gable, to half the height of the gable;
“hospital” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“hotel” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“house” includes dwelling house, warehouse, office, counting-house, shop, school, and any other building in which persons are employed;
“imposed load” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“lateral support” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“lintel” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“load bearing” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“local authority” means—
(a)
in respect of any local authority area, a local authority constituted under the
Local
Authorites
Ordinance, 1996 [Cap. 20] for such area;
(b)
in relation to the Bintulu District, the Bintulu
Development Authority established under the Lembaga
Kemajuan Bintulu (Bintulu Development Authority)
Ordinance, 1978 [Ord. No. 1/78];
(c)
in relation to the City of Kuching North, the
Commission of the City of Kuching North appointed under section 4(2) of the City of Kuching North Ordinance, 1988
[Cap. 49]; or
(d)
in relation to the City of Kuching South, the
Council of the City of Kuching deemed established under section 3 of the Local Authorities Ordinance, 1996 [Cap.
20];
“low lying land” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“maisonette” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“mesh” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“mezzanine floor” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“Minister”, unless the provisions of this Ordinance stipulate otherwise, shall mean the Minister for the time being having responsibilities over local authorities in Sarawak;
“MS” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“MSCP” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“nuisance” means any act, omission or thing occasioning or likely to occasion injury, annoyance, offence, harm, danger or damage to the sense of sight, smell or hearing, or which is or likely to be injurious or dangerous to health or property;
“occupation permit, temporary occupation permit and partial occupation permit” mean such permits given or granted under the
Ordinance or any regulations made hereunder;
[Inst. Cap. A52, Am. Cap. A224.]
“occupier” means the person in actual occupation of the land or building in respect of which the word is used, or having the charge, management or control thereof either on his own account or as agent of another person, but does not include a lodger;
“Ordinance” includes any subsidiary legislation made thereunder;
“out-building” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“owner”—
(a)
in relation to any land or building, means the registered proprietor of the land as defined in the Land
Code [Cap. 81 (1958 Ed.)] and, if in the opinion of the local authority the registered proprietor of the land cannot be traced, the person for the time being receiving the rent of the premises in connection with which the word is used whether on his own account or as agent or trustee for any other person or as receiver or who would receive the same if such premises were let to a tenant and for the purpose of section 10 shall include the occupier of the building; and
(b)
in the case of subdivided buildings and subdivided land, includes the developer, joint management body, management corporation and any subsidiary proprietor: the expressions “management corporation” and
“subsidiary proprietor” shall have the meanings assigned to them in the Strata (Subsidiary Titles) Ordinance, 2019
[Cap. 75];
“panel wall” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“partition” means any internal wall not being a party or an external wall;
“party wall” means a wall forming part of a building and used or constructed to be used for separation of adjoining buildings belonging to different owners or occupied or constructed or adapted to be occupied by different persons either constructed over or abutting a common boundary;
“pitched roof” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“a place of public resort” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“premises” includes messuages, houses, buildings, lands, tenements, easements and hereditaments of any tenure, whether open or enclosed, whether built on or not, whether public or private, and whether maintained or not under statutory authority;
“prestressed concrete” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“private connection pipe” shall have the same meaning as assigned to it under section 2 of the Sewerage Services Act 1993
[Act 508];
“public street” means any street which the public has a right of way repaired or maintained by the local authority or any other government agency or any street which the land has been transferred to or has become vested in the local authority or other government agency;
[Ins. Cap. A224.]
“qualified person”
includes any architect, building draughtsman and engineer, registered under the respective professional regulatory law and registered with the Board under this Ordinance;
[Sub. Cap. A224]
“Registrar of Green Building” means a person appointed under section 24C;
[Ins. Cap. A224.]
“registered building draughtsman”, for the purpose of this
Ordinance, means any building draughtsman who is registered under Part V of the Architects Act 1967 [Act 117];
“residential building” means a building or part thereof designed, adapted or used for human habitation;
“rock materials” shall have the same meaning assigned to that expression by the Land Code [Cap. 81 (1958 Ed)];
[Ins. Cap. A52.]
“room” means any portion of a building enclosed by walls or partitions;
“school” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“self-closing door” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“semi-detached building” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“septic tank” shall have the same meaning as assigned to it under section 2 of the Sewerage Systems and Services Ordinance,
2005 [Cap. 63];
[Ins. Cap. A224]
“sewer” shall have the same meaning as assigned to it under section 2 of the Sewerage Systems and Services Ordinance, 2005
[Cap. 63];
“sewerage system” shall have the same meaning as assigned to it under section 2 of the Sewerage Systems and Services
Ordinance, 2005 [Cap. 63];
“shophouse” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“SIRIM” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“sky-sign” means any erection consisting of a frame, hoarding, board, bar, pillar, post, wire or any combination of such things, or any erection of a like nature, or any visible object which floats or is kept in position by wire or other flexible attachment, displayed for the purposes of trade or professional advertisement in such a position as to be conspicuously visible against the sky above the general level of the roofs or surrounding buildings from any street or public place;
“slope” means a pitch of land surface or rock whether built or exists naturally including any erection which resists forces and moments of the slope;
[Ins. Cap. A224]
“smoke stop door” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“storey” means the space between the upper surface of every floor and the surface of the floor next above it, or if there be no such floor then the underside of the tie or collar beam of the roof or other covering or if there be neither tie nor collar beam then the level of half the verticle height of the underside of the rafters or other support of the roof;
“street” includes any road, square, footway or passage, service road, whether a thorough-fare or not, over which the public have a right of way, and also the way over any bridge, and also includes any road, back-lane, footway or passage, open court or open alley, used or intended to be used as a means of access to two or more holdings, whether the public have a right of way over it or not; and all channels, drains, ditches and reserves at the side of any street shall be deemed to be part of such street;
“street works” includes work of sewering, levelling, paving, metalling, flagging, kerbing, channelling, draining, lighting, laying of water, gas or electricity services and otherwise the making good a street or part of a street;
“structural elements” means those parts or elements of a building which resist forces and movements, and includes foundations, beams, columns, shear cores, slabs, roof trusses, staircases, load bearing walls and all other elements designed to resist forces and movements, but excludes doors, windows and nonload bearing walls;
[Ins. Cap. A52.]
“such plans and specification” means plans and drawing requirements as specified under the regulations made under this
Ordinance;
[Ins. Cap. A224]
“structural plan” means a plan relating to structural elements;
[Ins. Cap. A52.]
“submitting person” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“swimming pool” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“temporary building” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“terrace house” means any residential building designed as a single dwelling unit and forming part of a row or terrace of not less than three such residential buildings;
“verandah” means a roofed, open space attached to a house, usually with railings or columns to provide a shaded outdoor area;
[Ins. Cap. A224]
“verandah-way” [Deleted by Cap. A224.];
“wind load” [Deleted by Cap. A224.].
(2)
In this Ordinance, a reference to the Yang di-Pertua Negeri shall be construed as a reference to the Yang di-Pertua Negeri acting in accordance with the advice of the Majlis Mesyuarat Kerajaan
Negeri or by a member thereof acting under the general authority of the Majlis.
(3)
Any building which extends into the areas of two or more local authorities shall be treated for the purpose of this Ordinance as being wholly within the area of such one of those local authorities if one-half or more of the lot within whose area the building situated lies within the limit of that local authority.
PART IA
ESTABLISHMENT OF SARAWAK BUILDING BOARD,
REGISTRATION OF QUALIFIED PERSONS, ACCREDITED
CHECKERS, ETC.
Establishment of the Sarawak Building Board