PESHAWAR: The district administration here on Wednesday banned 181 private housing societies in the provincial capital for functioning in violation of the prescribed regulations of Peshawar Development Authority.

PDA Director General Syed Zafar Ali Shah told Dawn that the banned private housing societies were not following Peshawar Development Authority Private Housing Scheme Regulations, 2019.

“This action was taken after several notices were served by PDA on them and registration of FIRs against them for violation of law,” he said. He added that ban on the illegal societies would remain intact till they fulfilled the requirements mentioned in the regulations.

The ban was placed on the housing societies by the district administration on the recommendation of PDA, according to a statement issued here. Out of 181 illegal housing societies functioning in provincial capital, 123 were in Shah Alam tehsil, 25 in City tehsil, 24 in Saddar tehsil and nine in Mattani tehsil, it said.

“Whereas a number of illegal housing societies have sprung up in an uncontrolled manner, which are defrauding the public at large, and the competent authority has directed for strict implementation of laws on the subject matter, and to initiate action against such illegal housing societies and curtail spread of such societies in haphazard manner,” said a notification issued by the district administration.

PDA chief says the ban will remain until requirements are met

It said that the building control agency PDA recommended banning all sorts of land transfers, mutations and registries in unregistered/illegal housing societies till they obtained a valid No Objection Certificate from the competent forum.

Syed Zafar Ali Shah said that those housing societies were functioning without obtaining NOC from the PDA. He said that he had asked the district administration to register FIRs against such illegal housing societies that were looting people.

He said that illegal housing societies did not care for provision of many facilities to the residents including greenbelt, playing areas, lands for schools and mosques etc that often created issues among the housing societies and the land owners.

“If there is law and regulations, why the private housing societies are not following the same,” questioned Mr Shah. He added that PDA had registered FIRs against majority of the private housing societies working in Peshawar for violations of regulations.

PDA framed Peshawar Development Authority Private Housing Scheme Regulations, 2019, last year under Section 48 (A) of PDA Act, 2017. Under the regulations, private housing societies have to provide proper land for the housing schemes along with all basic facilities including sanitation, drinking water, natural gas, electricity, proper roads and public parks etc.

Under the regulations, minimum area of 100-kanal is required for development of a housing scheme. The regulations bind developers to provide proper land and basic facilities to residents of the societies.

The regulations states the land acquisition collector (LAC) shall certify that the width of access road is not less than 30 feet. The LAC is also responsible to verify the non-encumbrance certificate from the relevant government office thereby certifying that the land has not been notified by the government for any other purpose.

The regulations have made Environmental Protection Agency responsible to check whether the proposed site for the housing scheme is not prone to flooding and other environmental hazards and that the development of a housing scheme thereon will not result in any damage to the environment.

Under the regulations, the developers are bound to left seven per cent open space or parks of the total land acquired for the development of the housing scheme, two per cent for graveyard, five per cent for commercial area and five per cent for public buildings.

Similarly, through the regulations, PDA has fixed maximum size of residential plot 10,890 square feet (two kanals) and minimum size of residential plot 816.75 square feet (three marlas), internal roads with minimum 30 feet right of way and a 10-marla plot for solid waste management.

Published in Dawn, January 28th, 2021