The newest development that is going to be adding to the high-rises in Koramangala is Prestige Pinewood, slated for official launch on 23rd Feb. It is coming up on a 2.5 acre plot, carved out of the 65 acre Shantinagar House Building Co-op Society land (close to the Nirguna Mandir). The sales brochure details it at having 256 units, distributed over 3 towers, each 14 floors high. The works are to commence in Aug 2015; for completion in Dec 2018. 

 

Now, fearing such densification, and its adverse impact on the neighborhood, particularly with regard to traffic, water supply, sewage, narrowing of drains (raja-kaluve's), and such issues, a few concerened RWA's, had in Sept '12, collectively addressed this letter to the BDA. No BDA, no BBMP appears to have taken note of it. 

 

Another interesting aspect pertaining to the 65 acre property is that its ownership is mired in serious controversy, rocking the Siddaramaiah government even (check here). One wonders how the builder is taking such a huge risk. 

 

Now, the 256 flats will mean another 500 odd cars at the already badly congested Kamal Bakery (Wipro Park) junction, and a burden of another min 200,000 ltr/ day on the already overloaded water supply and sewage lines. And, if the remaining 62.5 acres are also developed in similar fashion, you can imagine what the situation is going to be. And, apparently, there's no preventing it.

 

The other high-rise developments making for the Manhattanisation of Koramangala are

1) The massive Mantri complex (on the Bellandur flood plains), approximately 12 times the size of the Malleswaram Mantri mall (presently stayed by court - check here),

2) The 15.64 acre PPP (Maverick/ Garuda) commercial cum EWS housing project coming up opposite the Games Village (check here, for details)

3) The massive Raheja Vivarea complex, which got mired in the MSL juggle (check here) 

4) The comparatively smaller Embassy Pristine and Sterling Infinia, also on the Ballandur flood plains (check here)

 

Besides all of these is going to be the inevitable commercial complex development, again by Prestige, on the massive 4 acre property, they acquired recently, at the toll-gate junction (Hosur road, Sarjapur road intersection). How many more in the offing one doen't know. Of course, all of these are in addition to the already existing, and decades old Raheja Residecy, Embassy Tranquil, Mantri Classic (where I reside), Embassy Meadows, and a few others. 

 

Well, people live in Manhattan, right? I suppose we can continue to live in Koramangala too. But, the difference is Manhattan simultaneously upgrades its infrastructure; but, we don't. Perhaps, it's time to demand of the powers that be that they either upgrade the infrastructure, or curtail such densification. 

 

Muralidhar Rao

 

I do not understand how permission for 14 floors could have been obtained. This place lies in the vicinity of HAL airport and between where Viveria Apartments are and the airport. Approximate distance from Viveria is about 1 km. If Viveria which is 1 km further could obtain permission from HAL to build only up to 932 m (about 12 floors) above msl (mean sea level) because  rules restrict the building heights within a certain radius of the landing strip for reasons of safety, how come Prestige is permitted to build 14 floors, even though closer to the airport?  The ground level at Prestige is not much lower than at Viveria. Is this another case of falsification of data to obtain additional floors? Viveria wanted to build 17 floors and had falsified the data of height in their application to get additional floors, which was detected by spirited citizens and  HAL was forced to cancel the NOC to Viveria. The matter is now in the court. The case of proposed Prestige project also needs closer scrutiny.

Traffic and water are going to major sticking points. Authorities need to explain how these have been addressed. This whole area was supposed to be a House Building cooperative society and plan was sanctioned for individual plots. How come these have now become high rise buildings in three towers? Are rules being bent?

 

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@ Major - There's a specific mention that the ceiling height is 9.75 ft. Perhaps the overall height issue has been addressed that way.

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At the backside of my house, in a land of 30x40 feet, a building with 5 floors has been constructed. There is one more building where there is a building of 6 floors on  a 30x40 plot.

I am afraid it might fall on the side even a slight problem such as poor quality material or even the lowest of earth shake. It belongs to all 'corporator' friends and cannot be questioned.

This is the way BBMP works!!!

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The height per floor has to be 3 meters as per NBC and BBMP Bye laws. It cannot be 9.75 feet.

Will be worthwhile to check the MSL declared against actual.

 

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Vasanth what are you doing about it?

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Vasanth - the cases you have cited appear fit to be included in a PIL, being readied currently. Please get in touch with me

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Excerpts from a post by a member in the "SaveKoramangala YahooGroup" reads as under:

There is a construction coming up on a site, adjoining the Koramangala Passport office, at a spanking pace. The Mantri board is on full view. The questions are:

1. Google Earth appears to show encroachment of a primary Rajakaluve in the rear of the property (if Google is wrong, how wrong -- are the buffer zones maintained ? ).  How is this construction continuing ?

2. A search of the SEIAA Karnataka portals show no clearance for the project. The project is clearly greater than 20000 sq metres which is the threshold level for Enviro Clearance.

3. RMP 2015 shows the status of the land as "Red" -- Public/ Semi Public land. The 2010-11 Annual Report of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) lists a parcel of land in its leased assets list which the report says is on lease from the BDA to its subsidiary "Mother Dairy Fruit and Vegetables P Ltd" . The report says that the 30 year lease period is drawing to a close and an absolute sale deed is awaited.

4,. Has NDDB alienated land given to it at a throwaway price by Government of Karnataka ? If so, for what consideration ? Has market price been collected from Mantri Developers ?

5. If Mantri Developers has paid less than market rate for picking up this land parcel who is the authority at NDDB who authorized this transaction and who will investigate this ?

Lots of questions -- one thing is for sure -- Government of Karnataka will fight hard to avoid answering these questions.

Besides all of the above, this massive development is coming up almost a stone's throw away from the Maverick/ Garuda mall project (listed at no 2 in my opening post). Considering the fiasco that their Bellandur project has evolved into (check here), Mantri were going about it very silently, and apparently, it was a local politico who sort of publicised it, at a recent RWA meeting, as if it was his gift to the community at large. The question one would have liked to ask him is "how is he being party to such "development" of Koramangala, when it has already developed far beyond the carrying capacity of its infrastructure?"

Another strange aspect here is the declaration by another Mantri, 1.75 million square feet, Hotel and an office complex named "Cornerstone", coming up in Binnamangala village, that they would dump 170000 cubic metres of excavated earth in the property adjoining the Passport office in Koramangala, based on which they supposedly got the project approval from SEIA Karnataka. That much of earth, if piled upon the 9646 square metre site, will rise upto 17.6M, the equivalent of the height of a 6-storey building. Nothing like that is evident at the site; so, what happened to all that earth; doesn't the SEIAA Karnataka have the responsibility of checking this out too?

And, as if all of that was not enough, there's another massive Prestige commercial project coming up at the already congested Toll-gate/ Spring factory junction (some 100 M across the main Hosur road from Forum Mall), going by the following information now made available:

Development of Commercial Building Project “Prestige Star Tech” at Municipal Khatha No. 140, Industrial Layout, Koramangala, Hosur Road, Bengaluru of M/s Prestige City Properties (SEIAA 203 CON 2015) This is a proposal seeking Environmental clearance for Development of Commercial Building with 2B+G+9UF, on a total Plot area of 34,296.83 Sq.mts and with total Built up area of 1,72,972.67 Sq.mts. (approx 1.75 million sft). Total water requirement is 600 KLD.

God help traffic!!! More importantly, the bandh yesterday has highlighted the water insecurity that the city already faces. How such a model of development can be sustained, in the face of all of these problems, is something that doesn't seem to bother the politico's the slightest.

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