ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) submitted a 215-page document to the Supreme Court on Monday in response to the court’s demand for details of the structures and practices of property owners in Islamabad, or their tenants, which violate citizens’ rights or local laws.

While submitting the voluminous document, CDA lawyer Hafiz S. A. Rehman conceded that owners, their tenants or even government agencies have obstructed roads, streets and footpaths in different residential sectors of the city by erecting fences or walls and placing concrete blocks in the guise of security tiers.

No formal approval of any kind was ever sought from the CDA for such encroachments, he said, informing a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court that “notices have been served upon a number of violators”.

Justice Jawwad S Khawaja and Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany have been hearing an appeal that arose from such a notice served by the CDA on a consultant firm, the Bridge Factor (Pvt) Ltd.

In early June last year, the Islamabad High Court rejected the firm’s plea against the CDA notice for running its office in Sector F-7/1 residential area. The high court also rejected its intra court appeal and upheld the earlier directions of the court.

Though the CDA has exclusive domain, it believes that they don’t have the authority to deal with such violations and that is why they have involved the foreign office, argued lawyer Ali Raza representing Bridge 0Factor before the Supreme Court bench.

According to the CDA document, 2,262 houses in the capital city are being used for “other than the actual purposes” - 904 as offices, 450 as either schools, 206 as guests houses, 176 as hostels, 199 as shops or furniture stores, 111 as beauty parlours, 83 as clinics, 18 as hospitals, 61 as restaurants, 29 as show rooms and 25 for “general or miscellaneous purposes”.

It also states that “567 non-conforming uses have been removed; 1,015 such cases are pending in the district courts and another 149 in superior courts.”

It informs that since 2009 till June 2014, the CDA had collected Rs3.4 billion in property tax from 37,710 residential and 14,439 non-residential plots.

The Bridge Factor appeal will be heard on February 3.

The CDA also informed the Supreme Court bench that it had approached the Foreign Office to take up the issue of foreign missions operating inside the residential area of Islamabad.

Its document noted that of the 64 foreign missions in Islamabad 36 have properly constructed buildings in the diplomatic enclave. Seven others are being constructed or expanded.

Though the remaining 21 missions own plots in the diplomatic enclave, they are being run from rented buildings in different residential sectors, such as those of Sudan, Belgium, Nepal, Czech Republic, Brazil, Algeria, Sweden, Oman, Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Palestine, Bangladesh, Bosnia Herzegovina, Brunei Darussalam, Tunisia, Mauritius, Hungary, Finland, Uzbekistan, Kazakhastan and several offices of the United Nations.

Bridge Factor lawyer Ali Raza highlighted to the Supreme Court bench that in its document the CDA also mentions the ongoing metro project as a reason for blocking the Constitution Avenue in Islamabad.

CDA lawyer Hafiz Rehman informed the bench that the authority has so far developed 18 residential and three commercial sectors against the 45 residential and 13 commercial sectors that the Master Plan, prepared by Messers Doxidus in 1960, provided for the new capital of Pakistan for a projected population one million.

But fast rising population has created housing shortage in the city and the private sector has been invited for the first time through amendments in the Master Plan to cope with the situation.

Thus ICT Zoning Regulations 1992 allow private housing schemes in Zone II and V of Islamabad.

In 2010 the Master Plan was further amended to allow private-public housing ventures in Zone IV too, which was initially reserved for agro-farming and national-level institutions.

Published in Dawn, January 27th, 2015

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