SB well put.

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We have an underutilized central business district. Center of the city today is

1. neither growing to be a major job area,
2. nor is it being groomed to be a residential region.
3. And to make things worst, nor is this under utilized CBD prividing any easy passages (rails or roads) for quick cross town connectivity which is a big problem today.

With Metro, we will have our CBD do at least one of the above 3 items (#3) for us. But will Vidhan Soudha, recreation (cricket, pubbing, parks) and shopping be enough to sustain the investments made in Metro? Cross town commutes alone can't sustain the Mega Metro project.

CBD needs a purpose. And that purpose can't just be to provide lung space for those living on the peripheries.

This may sound like a very anti-green statement. But it is not. Oppose any job-generating construction at BTC (or similar) today, and you would most likely be demonstrating against un-sustainable Metro project 5 years from now.

From planning perspective, our CBD badly and urgently needs a role, and a purpose. Central City station, Central Bus Stand, Government buildings - these were good enough for 70s and 80s when you and me were growing up in our shanti towns and villages all around the state and country. Change is needed, and needed right now.

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 Given that 4 lines meet at Majestic, some serious FAR reworking is needed.  Many residential places will be just 20 minutes on the Metro from Majestic.   

Similarly MG Road needs a revamp.  

Srivathsa

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KSRTC is planning to have multi storry business center on the 20 acre at the existing KSRTC Bus stand at Mejestic, this plan is going on for over  4-5 years and no progress is made. May be due to integration with METRO &  KSRTC Bus stand  This is suppose to be a  20 storry building with huge office space, for car parking.

BTC should be converted into good public park  with under-ground parking  & some good open theate for performing arts and Drama.  Compelet area should be maintained as forest only. We can not  think every thing on economical way. BTC open lung space is an future investment  for Bangalore. 

If we see the space arround Effile tower  in Paris or Central city in Amsterdam, they have maintained  huge open space for public to use.

Similarly, at all METRO staions, they should plan for office space on multi storry similar to Navi-Mumbai  Harbor Line stations  : Belapur, Vashi, Nerul and Panvel. Similalry they should provide Helipad  on few stations at  Jayanagar,  Mejestic, on Mysore Road.

I am not sure, our so called planners have learnt any lessons from Navi Mumbai Railway Stations ( constructed way back 1994-96 ) and Delhi METRO stations.

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Fair enough Sanjeev, can build a large park at BTC, who doesn't need lung space. However, if not the BTC area, unless someone revamps the CBD in other ways (1 large building at Majestic, that too being planned and built by the government, is not enough), we may end up in funny planning situations later.

Transportation investments seem to assume that there is a CBD

• Metro converges there
• City station is still situated there
• Newly planned HSRL starts at Central District
• Bellary Road has been spruced up, but only till the CBD

But let us get real please, the crowds these days increasingly live or work at other dense pockets in the city. I bet if you do a survey of traffic going to the airport (if business traffic can be defined that way), only a small part would originate or terminate at the CBD. When was the last time you went shopping to Majestic for something!?

Lung Space is not about multi square mile wide open courtyards alone. Large new parks do help, but Lung Space feel comes from gaps between buildings, small parks here and there, proper setbacks from roads, pavements wider than the roads, tree lined along the roads etc.

How many large parks have been built where people are actually prefering to live or work these days? Show me some new layouts on the peripheries where you have either large new lung space, or that Lung Space feel? I can only think of HSR layout on my side of town (south, east), and perhaps new yet to be packed stages of Banashankari.

You need Lung Space where you require it. Yes, as a rule, it should be all open and green everywhere. But things are not as simple. Artificially situated lung space in CBD is going to kill 3-4 times the lung space on the peripheries because you would force offices and houses farther and farther away by making the CBD artificially more un-affordale.

Sit back and think, and push for a revamp of CBD. BTC provides one chance. And few of us have been saying for ages - moving out Government offices as far away from CBD as possible is another doable measure. Most other options require government to force or encourage displacements, much harder job to do.

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SB,

Lets not confine CBD to constitute the likes of IT co's only to make it real..the majestic area has retailers but the main revenue from that place is from the wholesalers..

For ex the kanjeevaram silk saree sold in big store in Indiranagar or else where is most like to have come from the different 'pet's' around majestic..

Gandhinagar is also famous for the local movie faternity where the distributors run their business

Then we have many govt offices and bank HQ's here like Mysore Bank, Cauvery Bhavan and AG's office

The CFL that you put in your home also might have comefrom an whole saler in BVK iyengar road and the books could come from wholesalers in Avenue road 

TCS also has a very big office here

..and so on..

However this does not stop one from improving that place and bringing more biz!

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CBD consolidation needs a push from a planning perspective. Its one thing to expect all the hutment shops to come together by themselves for a visionary move for the city. It has to be a move from the planners where the property owners participate in the rejuvenation and benefit from the consolidation. The magarpatta model in Pune is a good lesson. 

The roads around Gandhi nagar are quite well done and is a good candidate for a hotel district, It can be made into a haven for tourist accomodation as the old pete area offers interesting local flavours for the travellers of course kollywood. Maybe some walking tours of area will help.

The pete area including avenue road etc need to be preserved. Walking only streets around the metro stations in the pete area will help increase foot falls. It is not a destination now but without a plan it will rot away and people will move out. It is difficult to retain the historic nature of the pete area if high rises crop up as they need slighty broader roads than 20 feet.

Nothing historic remains of the British South Parade and is a good candidate for high FAR consolidation. It offers mostly high street shopping which are replicable in malls on the outskirts. Business density needs to increase.

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Thanks Tarle. Just felt like bringing back a past comment rom Suhas, because he said it very well and clear on this 250-storye building at BTC post.

the denser we pack in the population, for a given population, the better it is for the enviorement. I dont have the reference to the study, but if we were to take the population of Bangalore and redistribute it evenly across the land avaialble in Karnataka, that would be enviorementally disastrous.

Alternatively, if we take in all the population of Karnataka and pack it into Bangalore, we will be better off enviorementally, though bad for Bangalore of course. When we pack people, utilisation of resources gets far more efficient. Imagine constructing 1000 different houses spread over 10 sq km, with all the associated roads, drainiage, water supply, electricity lines as compared to putting it all in one building (kind of common sense)

Skyscrapers are good for the enviorement, though you and me dont want it in our backyard.

I don't mind repeating that its time to think about the CBD.

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Definitely right srinidhi, can't just think all this from IT angle alone. BVK Iyengar Road, Cauvery Bhavan, Gandhinagar whole-sellers, SP Road whole-sellers etc are all around in the central area near Majestic, but not much has changed about the way these business areas are organized.

With higher FAR development around newly developed transportation corridors, these areas can sustain much higher levels of business activity. And you need much higher levels of business (and residential as well) activity in the central area if you want to grow Bangalore in better packed way.

Consolidating an already developed area is not an easy job. That is why it is not happening. (govts like to skirt around the problem, very natural)

Either build and grow the CBD, or stop planning with the assumption that we have a CBD.

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Interesting discussion here.

A lot has been said about lung space with reference to poor infrastructure, congestion, etc. What we do not realize is that most of these outpourings are a direct result of insufficient street space, difficult access & the resultant worsening traffic, pedestrian & street conditions, in large measure, & only a small part of these rants is attributable to other infrastructure issues such as power, water or drainage, for example.

Whilst densely compacted CBDs with many high rises do make sense, at least in as far as efficiency is concerned, in addition to the ease of arranging services faster, what we sorely lack is long-term planning, & cities are simply allowed to grow on their own in any which way they do, without proper regulation & focus on the more desirable results - democracy, with govts, bureaucrats & decisions changing frequently doesn't help, either.

It is perhaps a blessing that bangalore has such huge areas within the city centre allocated for transport, such as Subhasnagar inter & intra-city bus stations, & the city railway station, all adjacent one another. Very few cities have such facilities adjacently - in fact, all are within walking distance from one another. Metro, below the ground, will add another dimension to this whole complex. In spite of this, the dependance on private transport is far too excessive, distances being too large & bus routes being diffuse, rigid & complicated.

The existing commercial /CBD areas have already been exploited excessively without proper transport links - this has been true even on very narrow streets, resulting in the mess that the city is in now. It is as a corollary of this that the authorities are trying to clamp down on high FARs everywhere & the noise for "lung space" has been getting more & more loud.

Thus, as per the BDA Masterplan 2015, high-rises are being permitted officially only on roads exceeding a certain width (60-ft) - we know all too well what had been going on in the last couple of decades, & some attempt is being made here to bring in some form of regulation - the FSI is more liberal along Metro routes (3.75 to 4.00, according to the Masterplan), which is the right way forward.

Given the realities of diffcult access by all forms of transport to many areas, would it make sense to put up additional huge structures on vacant land made available due to excessive densification adjacently in the first place ? The very reason that they are now being vacated is to allow for some free space in an otherwise over-packed CBD. Do the existing over-strained CBDs not deserve some free space where available ?

For example, BTC will be well over a kilometre from the nearest Metro route or station - not walkable. So, how do people access the area, assuming that a couple of 100-floor or a 250-floor structure is put up there ? With only road transport to access the area, this would be a certain disaster ! I think it's all too clear that before any such decision is taken, we need to focus far more seriously & shift attention wholly on access to the area.

I don't think that consolidating an already developed area is difficult at all. In fact, various examples around the world, such as London's westend, Tokyo's ginza, Shanghai's pudong & even New York's manhattan have proved otherwise. Within a few years, new, taller buildings will come up along Metro routes, utilizing the increased FSI. I believe that the authorities are going about this in the right manner. If a metro route passes under or close to BTC (like it does for Petronas Towers in KL), then well, we could then think of that 250-floor building there, but as of now, I think it's more sensible to try to work on our existing problems one step at a time !!

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why not create a place for the people.

something which is FREE...

most of the places that we use or just "hang out" ,we end up spending a lot of money be it anything starting from a cup of coffee. there is no place in bangalore which aids to the mass as a whole...probably an oat, some heritage museums, recreational spaces filled with a lot of grenery.. say 80 acres open spaces with some 20 acres of built form spread out....

I think something on the lines of freedom park would definately be good.

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As Varsh  mentioned,  80 acre open spac with 20 acre for heritage museum with recreatinal space is good idea.   This will compliment the existing freeddom park also.  

One can see how Cannaught place of Delhi  has been developed with lot of open space & greenary. 

As Naveen mentioned about the logestic poblem if multi storry ( 250 storry )  building is allowed on BTC.  They can develop the Mejstic area on KSRTC, BMTC with Bangalore city station as commercial hub. All three with NAMMA METRO,  it will be easy for citizens to use the facility.

As mentioned by MANTRI Developers on Manthri Green Mall on Malleshwaram, thier Shopping mall will be directly connected to METRO & one can walk from station platfrom to  Mall directly. This is good concept  & will provide good  shopping experience & encourages people to use MTERO.

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Densification will happen anyways with mass-transits covering many areas soon, & the resultant impetus to build high rises - not denying that densification contributes immensely to improve the city's efficiency, but if available open spaces in or near CBDs were also used up to accomodate even more activities, a few thoughts remain to ponder over ....

The way we build /organize the city can greatly contribute to social justice - It is during leisure times that income differences are felt far more acutely. While higher income citizens have access to modern shopping, expensive healthcare, large homes /apartments, clubs, holidays & vacations, lower income citizens’ only alternatives are television & open /free public spaces.

For most people in India, public spaces offer the perfect solution for meeting others, conversations, socializing & enjoying the city at little or no cost. In daily life, people might be separated by incomes & other hierarchies, but in public spaces they become equals. Public spaces thus, also serve the role of great levellers.
Further, if tourists are to be attracted, the city must necessarily have good public spaces.

Probably a few hundred years later, people might wonder how we lived in such terrible cities - just as we are doing today when we think about cavemen & neanderthals.
We currently use glitzy shopping malls for meeting other people & friends, & as a symbol of our modernity - this is a symptom that our city is ill, nothing more !

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also its important to note the fact that bangalore started developing as a bi nuclii city with 2 main centers that were the "pete" area ( chickpet,balepet and others) and the cantonment region! now due to the hapazrd growth of the city into million tiny urban settlements, the city has become multinuclieated with mallewaram,basweshwarnagar,jaynagar,vijanagar and so on..! but ther is no one singe node that acts like a city center ! therefore this space could act as a city center thereby integrating the city!

but is it true that the btc is actually shifting elsewher? coz according to the land being alloted for the new btc ,its a tank area !

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Decision of HC is really good for B'lore city and this will go long way. Also the instruction to Govt to maintain the 93 acre as social forest is very good move.

The High Court wanted the State to take this as an opportunity to create a green paradise in the City, on a par with what was done in the past, in the form of establishing Lalbagh and Cubbon Park.

Such a contribution by the State will be remembered by generations to come as a gift to residents, the court observed. The court did not want the State to put up any construction here, thus putting an end to speculations of a possible multi-storeyed building coming up here.
 

Now Bangalore will have the 4th bigest public place along with Cubbon Park, Lalabagh & J P Park / Mathikeri all four having area of  minimum of  100 acre area each.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/59557/hc-asks-turf-club-vacate.html

As BTC is for the elite rich and Club has made huge profit over the period and enjoyed all status. Now only the ground workers looking after horses are badly treated by club. Now club is using them as shield  to get some sympathy from govt &  court which has back fired.   Govt should maintain its stand that it  is not  responsible for the land providing and should not provide any concession to it.

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