| July 22, 2007 | Sunday | Rajab 06, 1428 |
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Shoot the messenger
SURVEYING President General Pervez Musharraf’s chosen chief minister of Sindh, Arbab Rahim, takes one back to the old days of Paul Muni and Scarface, and Sidney Greenstreet and Guttman — those sinister master players on the silver screen. If Arbab does not like a law, he tries to change it, irrespective of whether it is right or not, possible or not possible.
This applies, inter alia, to the manner in which an upcoming commercial high-rise project on Karachi’s Wall Street, the now diligently dug up and impassible I I Chundrigar Road, is being orchestrated by the largest industrial empire of our country, ‘Milbus’ — to use the word coined by Ayesha Siddiqa to refer to “military capital used for the personal benefit of the military fraternity”. To be known grandly as Karachi Financial Towers, this complex can only exploit the rapidly deteriorating built-up environment of the city and add to the urban chaos.
A totally illegal land-use conversion has been masterminded by a subsidiary of the Pakistan Army, the National Logistics Cell (NLC), which has carved out from the Pakistan Railways (PR) Marshalling Yard at City Station Chundrigar Road a two and a half acre plot on which will be constructed a 43-storey twin towers, Karachi Financial Towers. NLC's partner in this grand venture is Enshaa Holdings of Dubai, known to the environmentalist world as global experts when it comes to the over-exploitation of the ecology.
Two wrongs have been committed — the first is the misappropriation of the plot; and the second is the pressure exerted by Quarter Master General of the Pakistan Army on the chief minister of Sindh, his surrender and subsequent sanction of a building twice the size normally allowed to be constructed on a commercial plot in the Railway Quarter on Chundrigar Road.
Railway land originally belonged to the Sindh government and was given to Pakistan Railways specifically for ‘public purpose,’ that is, a railway service. Such land is amenity land and cannot under law be used or leased for other non-conforming purposes.
Under the Karachi Building and Town Planning Regulations 2002 many aspects of the project such as sub-division, land development, commercialisation and deviation from a notified scheme, require a 'special development permit' involving a public notice and consideration of public comments/objections. In the Karachi Building and Town Planning Regulations, Chundrigar Road is a notified ‘Interim Control Area’, so declared “to prevent haphazard and unplanned development in areas lacking adequate: (a) water supply, sewerage, or drainage facilities; (b) utilities; electricity, gas, telephone; (c) health, educational or other municipal services or facilities; (d) road networks and public transport”.
On March 2 2006, the chief minister's secretary, Ayub Sheikh, very wisely and properly wrote to Chief Secretary Shakil Durrani on the subject of the “Construction of Karachi Financial Tower — Floor Area Ratio Review Committee (FAR) :
“I am directed to refer to discussion of QMG Lt. General Afzal Muzaffar on the subject matter with the chief minister, Sindh. The QMG informed the chief minister that NLC, a subsidiary of Pak army, in collaboration with a foreign company wants to construct Karachi Financial Towers on the land purchased from Government of Sindh/Pakistan Railways through auction on Chundrigar Road, Karachi. The NLC had already requested to enhance the FAR up to 1:12 for construction of a building.
The chief minister, Sindh, observed that the present ratio as per KBTPR is ranging from 1:3 to 1:6 as informed. Since that change in the ratio involves amendment in the KBCA town planning regulations, besides having environmental impact. The availability of infrastructure and other long-ranging implications are also to be assessed.
“It was thus decided that a committee may be constituted to look into the matter as a whole and formulate recommendation. The committee should also deliberate on zoning of Karachi with reference to FAR in various zones of Karachi.”
Accordingly, the chief minister of Sindh constituted a 14-member committee comprising bureaucrats, members of relevant professional bodies — architects and engineers of our premier statutory institutions — and representatives of our utility corporations.
A meeting of the committee was held on March 8, 2007, and a sub-Committee was constituted. The highlights of its recommendations, as communicated on March 16, 2007, by the Chairman of Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners, Architect Shahab Ghani : “I would also like to mention here the unanimous desire of all the members of the sub-committee to commend the chief minister of Sindh. and yourself in particular for your insistence in referring this matter to the relevant professional bodies and institutions of the city representing the citizens of Karachi, to obtain directions for your subsequent action. This is in the finest traditions of democracy, and the truest spirit of public service. . . .
“The first meeting of the committee was held on March 08, 2007. Views of all the participants were obtained on the matter and, after detailed discussions, all participants were unanimous that no such change could be considered for one project in isolation, and should be applicable to the entire zone. After further deliberation, it was agreed that a sub-committee comprising professionals representing architects, planners, engineers and builders make their recommendations within one week after thoroughly examining the case. . . .”.
The sub- committee met on March 10 and March 14, 2007. It was agreed at the outset that any recommendations made should be based on the premise that laws and regulations are made for the good of the majority of citizens and for the healthy future of our city, and that the development of the city must be encouraged but should be according to a master plan and be sustainable.
After extensive debate and analyses, the committee came up with its recommendations, inter alia, that a serious need exists to study the urban design aspects of the existing business district so as to prevent the complete collapse of urban infrastructure, that a traffic plan is a ‘must’, that the proposal is in direct conflict with, and diametrically opposed to, the aspirations of the Karachi Master Plan 2020 towards de-centralization and polycentric future development, and, most importantly, that land use should be changed only after proper review by public hearings and the current floor area ratio must not be increased.
Now a word on the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) : This is a planning tool that defines the allowable size, or bulk, of a building. The bulk of a building determines the size of the resident population and consequently the load imposed on the area utilities and infrastructure. It defines the amount of electricity and water consumed, the sewage and garbage output, the traffic generated, the number of parks, playgrounds, schools, hospitals and other civic amenities and facilities required.
When our corrupt and inept politicians and their loyal bureaucrats assume the role of town planners and arbitrarily convert plots from one notified use to another, or allow arbitrary increases in the Floor Area Ratio, or ‘legislate’ the commercialisation of roads, etc, chaos ensues. Unplanned and not-provided-for increases in population in a well laid out scheme ushers in a creeping deterioration in the built environment — a road designed for 500 residents is made to house 5,000, and so forth. Electricity and water supplies break down, sewers and garbage overflow, traffic jams and urban decay results.
In the case of the military, Karachi Financial Towers, now that the premier professional bodies of construction professionals in the country and even that much-maligned builders' association, ABAD, have strongly spoken out against the arbitrary/ad hoc and environmentally-damaging increase in FAR, giving cogent reasons and an elaborate analysis of the consequences, what has happened?
Chief Minister Arbab ‘Billboards-fell-by-divine-wrath’ Rahim, against all professional counsel and to please his boss and his powerful cronies, has used his ‘discretionary powers’ to allow the doubling of the size of a commercial building on an amenity railway space that his Sindh government has, for many years, refused to permit Pakistan Railways to lease.
Similar short-sighted and lucrative measures have been taken over the years to facilitate all types of mafias, and have now become a standard practice — one hundred wrongs now equal one right. The built-up environment of Karachi is being decimated by arbitrary and unplanned increases of notified FARs allowed by government professionals and officials who should know better, by a ‘commercialisation of roads’ policy of a city council desperate to generate funds, and by a builders-inspired ‘regularisation of illegal buildings’ policy decreed by our greedy so-called ‘leaders’.
The former chief secretary of this province, Shakil Durrani, tried to tell his chief minister that he cannot arbitrarily change and fiddle around with an FAR. Arbab Rahim was quick on the draw, and Shakil was shot out.
Engineer Roland de Souza of the NGO Shehri has written in great detail in our press earlier this month on this impending disaster which will hit us. Due credit must be given to him for his research and for his untiring efforts to save Karachi from utter ruin.
arfc@cyber.net.pk
