KARACHI, Nov 7: Yielding to pressure exerted by the Association of Builders and Developers, the Karachi Building and Control Authority has exempted the builders from submitting the no-objection certificates (NOCs) of utility organisations for getting the plans of their high-rise building projects approved.

Besides, the three categories of buildings for which the restriction of height has been waived include commercial, amenity and flat sites. It means that builders of the buildings falling under this category and being built in the city, except for Clifton’s (Khekashan Scheme-5) blocks 1, 2, 3 and 4, may now raise as many floors as they want provided the permissible floor area ratio (FAR) of 1:5 is maintained, KBCA chief controller Rauf Akhtar Farooqui told Dawn.

However, such a facility has not been allowed to the owners of residential plots as the floors of their buildings have been restricted to a maximum of ground-plus-four floors, he added.

Besides, the KBCA has increased the floor area ratio (FAR) to 1:9 of the buildings coming up on either side of Clifton’s Marine Promenade, and as such a high-rise building in that locality may now have any number of floors if the open spaces are directly proportional to the height -- ‘the more open space, the larger the height’.

However, it was mandatory for the builders/owners of all the high-rise buildings to be built in Clifton’s blocks 1, 2, 3 and 4 facing the Marine Promenade to have their own desalination plants, produce their own electricity and sewage treatment plants, the CCOB added.

Asked how would he define the two different floor area ratios – 1:5 and 1:9 – allowed for high-rise buildings of the city and Clifton’s blocks 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively, Mr Farooqui said that “if the plot size is 100 square yards than in the above cases the allowable covered area, called FAR, will be 500 square yards and 900 square yards, respectively. FAR may go up to any number of floors leaving open spaces as desired/required by the architect keeping in view other parameters of the Karachi Building and Town Planning Regulations,” he elaborated.

About the project fast coming up at the site of Clifton’s abandoned Casino, the KBCA chief controller said the building plan of a commercial project had been approved, allowing its builder/owner to raise the project up to 32 floors while building plans of some other projects of the area are under process.

The 32-floor commercial project is being built on a plot measuring 37,000 square yards where a casino building was built in the mid-70s but later the plot was auctioned to some private entrepreneurs – Dolman and partners -- who are now building a most-modern commercial centre there.

The concerned citizens apprehend that such a move on the part of the KBCA will put further burden on the city’s old pipelines, non-dependable sewerage system and vulnerable electricity network.

When the same question was put to the KBCA chief controller, he said whenever this issue was raised with ABAD, they argued that as they paid a heavy amount as development charges, it was mandatory upon the utility services to provide all such basic necessities of life to their projects.

At present, the 26-storey MCB head-office on I. I. Chundrigar Road is the tallest building in the city but the Karachi Financial Tower building being raised on the same busy and congested artery will become the tallest building on its completion with 37 floors as its construction firm, on the recommendation of the Sindh chief minister, has been allowed the floor area ratio of 1:12 as against the 1:6 in violation of the rules.