In the Margalla Hills by D-12, half a kilometre from a Capital Development Authority (CDA) signboard that declares construction in the area to be “strictly prohibited”, is a housing society complete with new plotting and large homes.
The area, according to the CDA, falls within Zone III, a part of the capital where construction is banned. Zone III is spread over 50,393 acres, of which 40,000 acres are part of the Margalla Hills National Park as notified under section 21 of the Islamabad Wildlife (Protection, Preservation, Conservation and Management) Ordinance 1979.
Although the city’s administration has remained largely unmoved in the face of unregulated construction in Zone III, it has been scrambling of late to try and satisfy the Supreme Court, which is hearing a case related to this matter.
Following one of the court’s earlier hearings on unregulated construction and encroachment in Zone III and the national park area, the CDA a couple of months ago suspended a few officials, ordered an inquiry, and banned construction in the area.
As of Jan 8, the SC has given the authority two months to create proper regulations, since its existing ones contradict each other.
Questions have also arisen about why the authority has not stopped construction if it is banned in the area, where thousands of houses have been built and their owners have acquired utility connections.
After being censured by the SC at its past hearings, the CDA has prepared an action plan to address encroachment and illegal construction in Zone III and the Margalla Hills National Park, according to which the CDA will, by this March, finish demolishing all the existing violations in the national park.
The authority has also set Jan 15 as a deadline for the demolition of illegal under-construction sites in the un-acquired portion of Zone III, in and around Shah Allah Ditta. Jan 15 will also serve as a deadline for the satellite monitoring system that the CDA is to setup to prevent encroachment on state land.
All unauthorised houses built in Zone III after January 2017, meanwhile, are to be demolished in six months.
The action plan has also decided that the authority’s 1992 zoning regulations will be amended to cater to the capital’s present needs.
CDA Member Planning Asad Mehboob Kayani has said that the authority will implement the action plan in its true spirit. Recently, he said, CDA teams carried out an operation in the Sanari village to remove encroachments on the national park’s land, in accordance with the plan.
According to a CDA advertisement published towards the end of last year, Zone III and the Margalla Hills comprise protected ranges, forests, the hills themselves, non-acquired land between the northern side of Murree Road, and areas such as Shah Allah Ditta, Chontra, Lakhwal, Banigala, Saidpur, Malpur, Bhara Kahu, Kot Hathial and Sangjani.
All construction in this zone is prohibited, but areas such as Banigala, which falls within the Rawal Dam catchment area, are dotted with hundreds of unauthorised residential and commercial buildings. Sources in the authority have said that in the past, unauthorised construction in Zone III was not stopped because of a misinterpreted SC judgement.
CDA Member Planning Asad Mehboob Kayani and then-chairman Sheikh Anser Aziz told a Senate committee a couple of months ago that the SC had previously directed the CDA not to stop locals building on private land that has not been acquired by the authority, but also said that the CDA should regulate the construction.