The decision of Punjab’s Local Government Department to relax height control restrictions in its municipal areas is set to intensify the war of words between the UT and Punjab, as the former has repeatedly objected to the colonisation to the north of Chandigarh, behind the Capitol Complex.
While the local government has stated that there would no restriction of height on commercial and group housing projects and the cap on the density of dwelling units per acre has been removed, UT officials believe that dense colonisation in this area would put extra burden on the infrastructure of Chandigarh.
It may be mentioned that the state local bodies department has planned a 30-metre wide road through the UT to connect Kansal and Nayagaon - two villages included in the Nayagaon NAC. Since UT’s Khuda Alisher village was cutting into Punjab’s territory, the integration of essential services like road, water and sewerage was not possible, unless allowed by the UT.
“The existing urbanisation had preceded the infrastructure. There are hardly any roads, water and sewerage network in badly insufficient. Further relaxing the bylaws would only aggravate the urban disaster. Urbanisation would mean more flow of vehicular traffic towards Chandigarh,” observed an official of the Punjab’s Town and Country Planning Department.
If the new bylaws are made applicable to the Nayagoan NAC, anyone who has 2500 sq yard plot can construct more dwelling units per acre, against the existing ceiling of 60 units. “As in Zirakpur, no consideration is made on ground to supplement the basic infrastructure for the group housing societies.”
Since the Tata housing has bought approximately 52 acres here for the setting up of a multi-storyed housing colony, sources did not rule out the possibility of the relaxations affecting the fate of the housing project in the area.
In the light of a previous announcement by the Punjab Government decision on not allowing any high-rise construction within 1 km of Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh ‘Capitol Complex’, it has not been made clear whether the entire area of the controversial housing project was covered under the ban.
While pointing out that the 1 km radius from the Capitol Complex includes some of the area that had been bought by the private company, the sources did not rule out the possibility of the rules being amended to benefit the mega builder.
As per the previous decision, the height of buildings within 1-km radius of the Capitol Complex from the eastern end of the Secretariat building would not be more than 15 m. Here the buildings can only be mirror images of the structures built in Sectors 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the UT.
Barring the area covered under the 1 km radius, height relaxations in rest of the area would certainly add to the chaos. No one is checking the haphazard construction in the NAC area.
Fixing the height of buildings in various zones in the Nayagaon master plan has always been contentious issues for the local government department.
Compared to the new norms of the local government in the Mullanpur master plan, the overall height has been fixed at 20-mt, 30-mt and 40-mt as the development slope moves away from the base of ecologically sensitive Shivalik hills. The intention is to develop the area in such a manner that the view from atop the Shivalik hills could be maintained. The logic of gradation of height in relation to the hills needs to be followed in case of the Nayagaon NAC, as the area is also close to the hills.
Part of the Dream Weave Walk Network 1998-2010