Recently, the Comptroller's Office of Bogotá, Colombia, reported that 55% of hotel construction licenses are irregular.
The control body said that more than half of the licenses issued by urban curators for hotel construction purposes do not comply with urban planning regulations. Most of these irregular licenses were issued between 2007 and 2010.
The situation was found during an audit carried out by the Comptroller's Office in the local mayor's offices of the areas of Usaquén, Chapinero, Suba and Teusaquillo. "Of a sample of 99 licenses reported to the Planning Secretariat of that city, 54 present irregularities in the design of the plans, do not guarantee accessibility or movement of people and exceed permitted uses," reported the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo.
As explained by the comptroller of Bogotá, Diego Ardila, "30% of the selected sample evidenced, in the approved projects, greater amounts of work, change of use and scale, modification of the design, construction of unauthorized works, suppression of parking lots and invasion of public space."
Given this evidence, the official warned that the fact of building more floors than authorized "entails a disorderly development and a deterioration of the sectors that have already been regulated."
According to the comptroller, these facts were sent to be investigated by the Attorney General's Office, the Prosecutor's Office and the Personería, even many of these projects could be involved in disciplinary and criminal proceedings.
