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Posts : Masterplan

CAF PIL on Bangalore Master Plan 2015

admin123 - 24-AUG-2008

Vijayan Menon, resident Bangalorean and an urban planning citizen enthusiast, forwards us the documents related to the Public Interest Litigation(PIL) filed by the Citizens Action Forum(CAF), the Koramangala Initiative(KI) and several residents of Bangalore, challenging BDA's Draft Revised Master Plan - 2015. Also included is the Report of the Advisory Committee on the Draft Revised Master Plan -2015, also called the PSS Thomas Committee Report, which was set up to analyse citizens feedback.

 

Meeting BBMP - updated.

admin123 - 17-AUG-2008

Based on some discussions we have been having here on the subject of planned development, its time to organize a Praja-style meeting with BBMP.

Hope for green belt? - breaking news

murali772 - 13-AUG-2008

CAF's counsel in their "Master Plan PIL" has informed as below:

After hearing the arguments at length, the Division Bench of the Hon'ble Chief Justice and Justice V Gopalagowda was today pleased to pass an interim order that any approvals in the Green Belt of 714 km under the '95 CDP shall be subject to further orders of the Court.

2000 acres for IT park, what about other things?

silkboard - 7-AUG-2008

I am terribly sorry. But I have an issue with developments like these - new IT park on 2000 acres around the city (source: DH). No, I am not going to speak the beaten line of farmland acquisition. I am not anti development at all, but I speak for us, the urban dwellers who lead close to miserable lives in this city today.

The government is setting up a sprawling IT park on 2,000 acres around the City to create the much-needed space for IT firms to expand their activities.

Wonderful news, and the plans look good. But lets do some maths now.

 

Byelaws, parking, traffic congestion etc etc

silkboard - 13-JUN-2008

Marathahalli building 1

How hard is it to make a post like this? Examples abound. Here is another one from Marathahalli. A new tall building popped up earlier this year, and a Shanthi Sagar showed up, I am guessing as a tenant.

Of course, the parking has been planned for. Its in the basement. Spot the basement there, just to the left of stairs?

Uncontrolled growth - any remedies?

silkboard - 13-APR-2008

Here is a tale of two buildings right next to each other.

Setback from the road, and use of basement for the first one:

[flickr-photo:id=2410462125,size=m] [flickr-photo:id=2411290616,size=m]

New Building Byelaws

tsubba - 14-MAR-2008

A technical committee comprising of town planners, structural engineers, architects, representatives from the Fire Force, Airports Authority of India, Bangalore Metropolitan Region Development Authority (BMRDA), BDA and other service providers of the city is working on the revision of building bylaws for Bangalore based on the recommendations of the masterplan 2015. It will take atleast 3 months for the committee to work on the changes, then a draft will be sent to govt for approval. After this there is a month's time for citizens to file any objections. (Source: Building bylaws being revised, DH )

I think it might be useful to track this carefully.

Sakrama and regularization

silkboard - 6-MAR-2008

So the state government extended the deadline, and also reduced 'regularization' fees. The BJP wants the scheme to be put on hold, and I think we will soon hear more from the courts via some pending PILs.

Sakrama may not be a perfect scheme, but it is the only step government has taken towards solving the mother of all ills that plague our city - plan violations. I don't like the one time fee concept (why not make violators pay a fee every year, that way you will make them think of altering constructions). I don't see clarity on what will happen to the buildings with 'unacceptable' level of violations - demolitions or not? I don't see any talk of punishing the 'officials' who may have been involved in letting things come to such a state where 70-80% of buildings have violations. I don't see creation of new fund or special task-force (regularization fees can be used for this) to improve policing of building norms so that we don't require a Sakrama every five years. But, but, but.

Not my fault

silkboard - 2-AUG-2007

It costs Rs 5000 and there is no online version available, not even a summarized one. So while I am yet to read Bangalore's Masterplan-2015, newspapers have been supplying bits and bytes on it. Of them recently, this one caught my attention. Apparently, with CDP-2015, Architects, planners and engineers face the threat of losing licences if they fail to report violations of building byelaws, and they are not happy with it:

"By bringing in this clause, the authorities, they allege, are shifting the burden of enforcing the laws to architects, town planners and engineers."

Alright, government bashing is fashion of the day. But I fail to see the rationale behind general expectations that everything is the responsibility of "officials". (Actually, I find this word "officials" pretty amusing, will save that for a later post).