LAHORE: As the government is going to allow the construction of high rise buildings in Lahore, urban expert Kamil Khan Mumtaz calls the move damaging to the city that needs densification and not such experiences. He also suggests the government avoid making the city for motorists alone, as pedestrians too have equal rights to move freely on streets.

“It is a case of increasing density and not constructing high rise buildings for which we need huge money,” Mr Mumtaz, urban expert, tells Dawn.

“I’m sure that 90 per cent of the developed areas have low density, making Lahore a city of high income population. At present, 40 per cent of the Lahore’s population occupies 90 per cent of the total developed area, leaving the 60 per cent in only the remaining 10 per cent area.”

Prime Minister Imran Khan on March 1 directed the Lahore Development Authority, in particular, and the Punjab government, in general, to stop horizontal growth of the provincial capital. He also sought formulation of new bylaws and or amendments to the existing laws that could allow both public and private sectors to build high buildings.

The secretary (implementation and coordination) has written to the Board of Revenue senior member, Local Government and Community Development Department’s secretary, and LDA and Parks and Horticulture Authority director generals seeking proposals on the development.

He states the prime minister also seeks green areas and parks to combat environmental degradation. Effective laws should be also framed to protect arable land being eaten up in Punjab by housing societies.

A commission by the Supreme Court in 2007 started working to carry out a survey of the high-rises and recommend appropriate actions against those involved in such constructions in violation of the rules and regulations. The commission also got demolished several buildings partially or completely.

“Actually, the apex court took up the issue in 2007 in the wake of various public complaints and finally constituted a commission in this regard. As under the law there is requirement of adequate parking provisions (one vehicle parking mandatory for 1,000 sq feet covered area) while constructing such buildings, many sponsors/owners flouted rules and regulations,” an LDA official explained. “So the commission after a thorough survey identified over 700 buildings in the controlled areas of LDA and the Lahore Metro Corporation. The commission recommended demolition of about 70 buildings, partially and completely.

Likewise the outgoing PML-N government too avoided allowing the LDA to encourage toward such constructions that led to city’s horizontal growth, he said. Two months back, the official said, the apex court while hearing a case related to imposition of a huge penalty over the illegal construction of some additional floors at a plaza near Kalma Chowk stopped LDA to do so (receipt of penalty). To a question, the official said there was no binding to the LDA from the apex court regarding permission of high rise buildings.

LDA Vice Chairman Sheikh Muhammad Imran said the prime minister instructed him to work on the possibility of allowing high-rises’ constructions to maximum heights as being practiced in Karachi and other developed mega cities in the world.

“There would be no issue if highrises are constructed here. We are studying our existing LDA and Civil Aviation Authority, security agencies and other institutions laws,” he explained. He said the main objective of this initiative was to stop horizontal growth of the city. This is only possible with vertical expansion that is possible in having high rise buildings that could provide housing and commercial facilities to the people.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2019