KARACHI: Can a city marred by a serious crisis of governance and resources afford further densification? Why is the government allowing construction of more projects when its own departments and utility agencies are unable to provide guarantees on the supply of water, gas and electricity to new infrastructure?

These questions bother every person who has been a regular attendee to the public hearings of the Sindh Environ­mental Protection Agency (Sepa) for some time.

Similar was the case on Thursday at the Institution of Engineers, Pakistan, where the environmental watchdog had organised a public hearing of a proposed high-rise project under the Sindh Environmental Protection Act, 2014.

A residential-cum-commercial venture, the G & W Tower is a G+25 storey building proposed on Plot No BC-01 near Bilawal House in Clifton’s Block 2.

The plot area is around 18,149 square feet with the building designed to have 145 flats and 10 shops.

The event started with a presentation on the key features of the project, its environmental impact assessment (EIA) report and environmental management plan by Saquib Ejaz Hussain representing the Environmental Management Consultants, the company which carried out the project’s EIA.

According to him, the project site is currently an open land and designated as a commercial plot in the master plan of Clifton Block 2.

“The water requirement during the project’s operational phase will be about 37,051 gallons per day for which the proponent has obtained no-objection certificate from the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board.

“As alternative, the proponent has adequate arrangement for purification of water from underground aquifers,” said Hussain, adding that the proponent had initiated a study to assess the groundwater potential and its general use during project’s operation.

The proposed project, he said, also had the provision for a solid waste management plan and treatment and recycling of waste water, which would be utilised for green belts.

“The building has additional parking space for 183 cars apart from the parking space reserved for its residents. Also, a traffic management plan would be implemented during the construction phase and after project’s completion,” he said, adding that the project featured vertical and rooftop gardens.

Questionable monitoring

Like previous public hearings, one of the major concerns of stakeholders during the question-answer session was about the project’s sustainability given the acute shortages of basic amenities the city had been facing for a long time.

It was pointed out that the ‘NOCs’ granted by utility agencies, such as the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board, K-Electric and Sui Southern Gas Company, were “meaningless” since these agencies didn’t make any specific commitments and subject their supplies to availability of commodities.

An important project-specific objection was about Sepa’s rejection of an EIA report pertaining to another high-rise project on the same corridor.

“The EIA should study the cumulative impact of development projects on the corridor concerned. Earlier, while rejecting the EIA report of Noman Castello, Sepa had observed that the assessment should be on the corridor (Khayaban-i-Saadi) as a whole, the very corridor on which this project is situated,” observed Dr Raza Gardezi representing Citizens for Environment, a non-profit.

He contended that Sepa should constrain the Sindh Building Control Authority and cantonment boards to undertake a cumulative impact assessment of the corridors that had been commercialised before further grant of standalone approvals of architectural plans for buildings on the corridors concerned.

In this respect, Dr Gardezi referred to a Sepa order dated March 2017 in which the agency directed all the building authorities in Karachi to submit EIA of all commercial corridors in their respective jurisdictions.

“But, it is unfortunate that neither the authorities responded to Sepanor Sepa itself took strict action against them.”

There was no reply on these reservations from Sepa representatives led by deputy director Imran Sabir, who also had to face criticism from another participant as being a junior officer chairing a public hearing.

“It’s highly [regretful] that Sepa’s director general has no time to hear public grievances,” said Mairaj Khwaja.

Stakeholders urged Sepa to direct the project proponent to prepare an emergency evacuation plan as part of the EIA report and that the emergency fire staircase in the building design should be modified and include two continuous staircases for emergency.

There was also a call for independent monitoring consultants by Sepa and it was suggested that a panel of experts from Pakistan Engineering Council, Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planning and members of academia/civil society should be nominated on the body.

Replying to some queries, the Sepa representative said that all EIA approvals being granted by the department would be uploaded on its website and that the department was taking action against offenders violating environmental laws.

Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2019