ANGELES CITY – Residents assailed owners of the Grandview Tower here after the condo-hotel had offered a public viewing of the recent 17th Hot Air Baloon Festival at the eight floor where an Austrian national allegedly committed suicide on February 7.
The residents, including foreigners, said Grandview should not have offered viewing of hot air balloons from February 9 to 13 at the roof top because the area is “exposed to danger.”
They added that there are no railings at the back portion of the roof top where 75-year-old Austrian Norbert Walser allegedly jumped from the 8th floor at about 3:17 p.m. last Tuesday.
“With that scenario, how can we say that it is a suicide? He may have just accidentally slipped after looking down from he was standing,” they said.
Based on the pamphlets distributed by Grandview, they offered a P500 per person breakfast at the roof top. They even invited journalists to take photos of hot air balloons which had taken off from the Clark Freeport.
The residents also questioned the partial occupancy issued by City Engineer Donato Dizon in August 2011 to Grandview for floors one, two and seven.
“How can you reach the 6th and 7th floors from the ground floor without passing by the second to the fifth floors,” they said.
In an interview on Monday, Dizon said it is legal to issue partial occupancy permit as stipulated under the national building code.
In section 307 of the building code, it said “a partial certificate of occupancy may be issued for the use or occupancy of a portion or portions of a building or structure prior to the completion of the entire building or structure through the proper phasing of its major independent portions without posing hazards to its occupants, the adjacent building residents and general public.”
“There are some clients of Grandview which had wanted to live in their units already,” said Dizon.
When asked if the roof top had been issued permit to be occupied, assistant city engineer Arch. Oscar Vitug said “its permit is associated with the occupancy permit to be issued if Grandview had met all the requirements.”
Dizon said they will also look into the complaints that the back portion of the hotel-condominium had not been properly made.
The residents showed to Punto the emergency stairs at the back of the hotel “poorly and wrongly designed.”
They said the stair railings should have been constructed to protect the ones using them.
Grandview has yet to issue statements since last Thursday.
