LAHORE: The government has approved the revised layout plan of Finance & Trade Centre (FTC), Johar Town, and an amendment to the LDA’s Building and Zoning Regulations-2019 under which the restriction on the buildings’ height have been removed, allowing construction of skyscrapers in the high-end zone in Lahore.

The government has also constituted a committee headed by the LDA vice chairman in a bid to assess the quantum and imposition of betterment fee, resising of plots as per the market demand and to deal with the matters related to generating maximum revenue.

“In fact, the FTC was the only area in Lahore that was originally planned to boost commercial activities by allowing construction of high-rises to unlimited height subject to getting NOC from the Civil Aviation Authority and other departments concerned (if any). For this, the LDA was required to make some amendments to the building regulations. But, unfortunately, it was not done and it led to allowing others (like the Central Business District Authority) to make business-friendly regulations and allowing construction of skyscrapers having unlimited height in Gulberg,” an official source explained while talking to Dawn on Sunday.

“They (the CBDA), due to their regulations, auctioned their plots at much higher rates as compared to the LDA in its FTC project. Therefore, a team worked on this issue, introduced amendments to the regulations and revised the FTC plan, and these were finally approved,” he added.

The amendment expected to boot commercial activity

The Lahore’s FTC is one of the few mega commercial hubs, attracting a number of local and foreign investors interested in launching various projects there. The FTC has a total area of over 1,182 kanals, of which 65 percent has already been auctioned. On various plots, different projects have already been completed, including a mega mall, a hotel, Expo Centre, while a skyscraper was under construction there.

The FTC is also called Lahore’s southern business district, located in Johar Town’s Phase-II on 180-foot wide road connecting the Canal Road with Shaukat Khanum Hospital. Its layout plan had been approved by the LDA’s then governing body in its meeting held on May 20, 2011.

The plan had been designed in accordance with the international standards comprising 10 blocks meant for multiple uses like building an expo centre, super store, bank square, hotels, corporate offices, commercial zone, health club, mosque, apartments, hospitals, parking plazas, mini golf course, recreational area, a lake, a park, service area etc.

Later, the authority in its meetings held on September 16 and December 27, 2014 approved some amendments to the FTC’s layout plan. In another meeting on December 9, 2017, the authority approved some new proposals for the FTC plan as suggested by the LDA’s directorate of estate management-1. The proposals were further modified and approved in a meeting on March 19, 2018.

“The LDA’s town planning wing, during demarcation of various plots/blocks, observed the variations in sizes of plots in deviation from the approved layout plan of the FTC. The Strategic Policy Unit (SPU) along with NESPAK also conducted topographic and aerial surveys etc of the FTC in order to rectify the layout plan.

A comparative analysis of different blocks of the FTC as per the aerial survey and demarcation plans revealed that approximately 30.27 kanals were in addition to the earlier measurements of the site, read minutes of a recent meeting of the LDA’s governing body.

The meeting participants were of the view that the significant increase in the area could be used to get additional fiscal benefit for the LDA by increasing the size of plots/blocks, accordingly. They decided revision of the layout plan under which size of plots was also increased. According to the minutes, the authority under section 6(2)(v) of the LDA Act made and enforced the LDA Building and Zoning Regulations 2019, Chapter 12, prescribing height, building line, rear, ground floor coverage, floor area ratio, side space and parking for plots of different sizes in the FTC. The plots of different sizes were put to auction and the quoted and accepted price per kanal remained Rs80 million per kanal, last year.

On the other hand, the Lahore CBDA auctioned its plots on an average price of Rs420 million per kanal during 2021.

As per available record, 325.60 kanals are still available for auction, which if auctioned at the rate of 420m per kanal, would yield Rs136 billion in revenue.

The huge difference in the prices of the plots auctioned by the LDA and the CBDA forced the former to carry out a study to identify the reasons for this. Eventually, through a thorough in-house consultative exercise it was found that the main reason behind the price difference was the height, building line, rear, ground floor coverage, etc, the minutes read.

As a result, an amendment in Chapter of the Building Regulations was proposed to enhance the value of plots already sold or yet to be auctioned. It was also ascertained that the infrastructure of the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) and the roads could bear the added burden likely to be caused by the proposed amendment to the regulations.

“The approval of the revised layout plan and amendment to regulations would not only boost the business and economic activities in Lahore, but also earn a huge revenue for the government,” the official maintained.

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2022