ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Housing and Works and the Federal Government Employees Housing Authority (FGEHA) plan to form an urban regeneration board to deal with state land in various cities including Islamabad.

If all goes as planned, government houses in different sectors of Islamabad including F-6, G-6, F-7 and so on could be demolished so that mixed used buildings could be constructed in place of them.

The proposed 14-member Urban Regeneration Board (URB) will be headed by the housing secretary.

Federal commission directs CDA to deal with matter at departmental level

According to the draft urban regeneration and redevelopment act, 2021 the board will also have the power to carry out “clearance, development, re-development and regeneration of state lands [in various cities].” It will also have the power to sell, lease, sub-lease or grant licences to use or occupy land or property as an agent for the government.

Islamabad’s perspective

According to sources in the housing ministry, the draft act was shared with provincial governments and Capital Development Authority (CDA) as well for comments.

They said that a federal commission constituted for revision of master plan of Islamabad also discussed it in its last meeting on Tuesday.

The commission was told by CDA that the civic agency after constructing houses on its own land in various sectors had handed them over to the housing ministry for allotment to government servants. This land still belongs to the CDA.

After getting a presentation and briefing from FGEHA’s officer Rizwanur Rehman besides getting a briefing from CDA, the master plan commission referred back the issue to CDA, directing it to deal with it at the departmental level.

Sources in the civic agency said that government houses constructed in various sectors of CDA like G-6, F-6, F-7, G-7 belong to CDA as the civic agency after constructing them on its own land, had handed them over to the housing ministry for allotment purpose only.

“Our final comments on the proposed act are yet to be made, however, why shouldn’t CDA, which is a much larger organisation than FGEHA carry out regeneration of government houses which technically belong to the civic agency anyway,” a CDA official said.

Secondly, he added, the civic agency will also have to look into other aspects such as services and load on traffic. “If in a sub sector of G-6 we will go to construct multi-storey apartment buildings for mixed use of commercial and residential purposes, after demolishing government houses, what will be the impact on services, traffic, environment and the already existing markets and marakiz. One thing is clear, there is a need of vertical construction in Islamabad to save precious land,” he said.

When contacted, FGEHA’s Director Planning Rizwanur Rehman said: “The proposed board is being constituted to make decisions related to property and land of various cities and is not specific to Islamabad. In the master plan commission meeting, I shared the details of the act and purpose of urban regeneration board.”

To a query regarding ownership of government houses in CDA’s sectors, he said, during the meeting, CDA officials had pointed out that the land of these sectors belonged to them.

“It was just the initial meeting and we will work in close coordination with the CDA. Our purpose is to go for vertical construction instead of having big government houses,” he added.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2022