Redesigned Process

Current Regulatory Approval Process

All building developments in Singapore are regulated by 8 key regulatory agencies – BCA, LTA, NEA, NParks, PUB, SCDF and URA, with SLA handling land and strata matters.
Projects are required to obtain regulatory approvals from the relevant agencies at various milestones of the project.
Currently, building professionals (e.g. architects, civil and structural engineers, mechanical and electrical engineers) can make separate submissions to individual agencies based on project progress.
Under the current approval process, a typical building project will need to undergo over 20 approval gates across 8 agencies.

New Regulatory Approval for Building Works (RABW)

The new regulatory approval process streamlines the multiple touchpoints into key submission gateways.
At these gateways, coordinated submissions (consisting of various building disciplines) will be submitted and reviewed collectively by agencies. This helps to ensure cross-agency issues and conflicts are identified upfront.
Agency-specific requirements (e.g. technical details of building components) can then be supplemented at later stages and be reviewed by the individual agency.
This new process aims to provide clarity on the dependency to each stage, ensuring the imposition of requirements are timely, allowing specific details to be submitted separately without affecting the overall approval at each milestone.

Important:

QPs only need to make submissions if there are requirements at the respective Gateway related to their statutory responsibilities.
While it is possible that there are Gateway(s) that a QP does not have to make submissions, e.g. Structural / M&E Engineers in the Design Gateway, these QPs need to provide inputs to the Registered Architect so that the submission encompasses all aspects of planning.
Between Gateways 2 and 3, independent submissions for agency-specific technical details are allowed for submission by individual professionals to agencies.

Summary of Detailed Requirements at Each Gateway

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Cover Image for CX Agencies Requirements

More information on the 3-Gateway Process

1. Design Gateway

Clearing of key design parameters, such as Master Plan land use, intensity, building massing, site layout, etc, so that the project team can move on to develop details.
For a typical project, submission at this stage would be made by the QP (Architect) and his/her submission would contain inputs from the other QPs (e.g. location of the electrical sub-station, connection to the main sewerage and drainage points).

1.5. Piling Gateway (optional)

Clearing of Major Requirements to allow piling to proceed.
Allowing work to start on substructure while the rest of the details are being worked out.
Is an optional gateway for works requiring piling.

2. Construction Gateway

Clearing of Detailed Design of the development, such as layout, accessible route for people on wheelchairs and fire escape route.
Approving detailed building design to proceed with construction.
For a typical project, submission at this stage would be a joint submission by the QP (Architect), QP (C&S Engineer) and QP (M&E Engineer), to clear the detailed design imposed by agencies.

All Other Requirements

These requirements can be submitted independently to different agencies. There are typical technical details or component level info that would only be relevant to a specific agency.
Examples include Structural submission (calculation) for safety barrier and claddings of the project.

3. Completion

Submission of As-Built model and application for Temporary Occupation Permit / Certificate of Statutory Completion.

Direct Submission Process

The Direct Submission Process (DSP) is a differentiated approach for smaller scale and simpler building works (e.g. single-unit residential landed development, standalone pavilion / linkway / racking system) in which the Design, Piling (optional) and Construction Gateways are combined into a single stage approval gateway prior to the Completion Gateway (i.e. TOP/CSC).

The DSP simplifies the regulatory approval process for such building works, for which the default 3-gateway process may be too onerous.

Independent Submissions

Independent submissions, or agency-specific submissions, can be submitted in parallel with Gateway submissions across the entire regulatory approval lifecycle.

An example of an independent submission for Structural works is as follows.