KARACHI: Experts have called for involving the people of Karachi in the re-planning and development of the city.

Speaking during a webinar about the re-planning of Karachi titled ‘Governance and Planning Framework’ on Monday, they shared their opinions on how the city could be improved and upgraded through the Prime Minister’s Transformation Package.

Sameeta Ahmed, head of the Department of Architecture at the Karachi Institute of Technology and Entrepreneurship (KITE), who also happened to be the organiser of the webinar, started by discussing previous master plans for Karachi. She said officials concerned needed to visit those plans and assign different departments to take care of their different aspects. Bring experts into technical planning, listen to taxpayers about their vision for the city. Sustainable development and environment also needed to be considered, she added.

Amber Alibhai, general secretary of Shehri-Citizens for a Better Environment, said that everyone working for planning of Karachi was working in pockets and not together.

Experts share opinions on how city can be improved and upgraded during webinar

“Be it KMC (Karachi Metropolitan Corporation), DHA (Defence Housing Authority), Cantonments, etc, they all work separately. All university departments of architecture should also do some research to see which law helped which area or community of the city. Call legislators to educate them about your city, make them understand what laws are needed to help their city,” she said.

‘There is no plan anywhere’

“It needs to be examined how our corporates or businesses are contributing to urban commerce and ... housing for common people. We have no recreational spaces. Who will create these places? Who will maintain them? There is no plan anywhere. We are just doing firefighting in our city, not doing anything beforehand,” she said.

Urban planner Farhan Anwar said that the government’s plans did not provide the desired outcome.

“Our projects have no organic links to planning and therefore they fail while the city serves the motives of a select few. We need to evolve a political consensus. Otherwise, it will all be going from worse to worst. Our institutions are working on inappropriate mandate. So we need to rethink planning itself. We need strategic planning with sustainable neighbourhoods. We need to bring this city together with vision,” he said.

“Cosmetic work won’t do here. You need radical surgery,” he added.

Environmental lawyer Zubair Abro said that the biggest problem was that the government’s planning institutions were not even willing to consider the people of this city as the stakeholders of Karachi.

“There are tall buildings, even taller than 50-storeys high that don’t even have approval to go that high, but there they are,” he said when talking about the laws and bylaws of buildings and their construction from the point of view of environmental laws.

“No institution here cares about the law regarding buildings,” he added.

“And see how the city has grown. DHA City is not Karachi. It is Nooriabad if you ask me. And how will you supply water to these new housing schemes said to be part of Karachi?” He asked when talking about bending laws to create more land to sell for housing to citizens of Karachi.

“And why is there never any environmental assessment or study done for government buildings and projects,” he asked. “In actuality you need an environmental audit of the entire city.”

Nargis Rehman of the Karachi Citizens’ Forum said that there was no cooperation between civil institutions. “But instead they clash with each other. There is ill will. In fact, there is no will to do any good for this city,” she said.

“This transformation package includes three loans. But we want economic revival. We need good governance. And these things need good planning but here we are taking loans for improving a city without a plan and without implementations of plans. We need a redressal system,” she said.

Speaking from the business community, Mirza Ikhtiar Baig said that our projects have flaws. “Many of these projects are old and have been revived. But in reviving them we need to look at the changes that have taken place in all these years. They may need a modern design infrastructure like they do for K-IV and the Karachi Circular Railway now. So are the old or revived plans even suitable now?” He asked.

Yasir Hussain of the Green Pakistan Coalition said that public participation was very important in planning for the city.

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2020