ISLAMABAD, June 20: Apparently, the Capital Development Authority’s management is being accused of deliberately delaying the construction of the elite housing society - Jewel of the City: Park Enclave - as it has yet to approve the layout plan, Dawn has learnt.
Park Enclave housing society was inaugurated in July 2011, followed a few days later by the Bahria Town venture, Bahria Enclave.
However, less than a year on, 70 per cent of the development work at Bahria Enclave is complete while Park Enclave has not seen any major construction on its site.
“The layout plan has not been approved. In fact, all approvals for development-related activities are stuck at the office of chairman CDA,” said a senior official of the agency.
The layout plan of a housing society, according to an expert, entails different land uses in arithmetic manner as per health planning parameters. “These parameters include the green areas, park areas, commercial building areas, pathways etc,” he elaborated.
Meanwhile, another official of the authority deputed at the chairman’s office revealed that the map that had been published on the forms of Park Enclave was just a sketch.
“The authority has offered around 700 one-kanal plots besides 600 plots of different sizes and has generated between Rs4 million and Rs5 billion. But there is zero development on the ground,” asserted the official who is associated with the development work of the Park Enclave, “because without approval of the plan, no work can be initiated at the site of Park Enclave.”
He added that for the time being, the authority was moving forward with the construction of the boundary wall at the site. “Seventeen firms have submitted bids to construct the boundary wall at the society which still has a number of encroachments,” said the official.
It is pertinent to mention that the CDA has failed to open any new sector in the last 20 years. Even sector D-12, which has been “inaugurated” by three former Prime Ministers – Benazir Bhutto, Shaukat Aziz and Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani – and saw some development work, is closed.
“Sector D-12 is still not developed and the office of the chairman is not bothered enough to enquire the relevant officials to ensure an early departmental file processing such as approvals of layout plan and initiating construction of the housing society,” said one member of the CDA board.
The board member further claimed that CDA was willing to initiate and approve the layout plan of Park Enclave, but the matter was not being forwarded by the officials concerned.
“The CDA board has approved the layout plan for Park Enclave in a meeting, but the minutes of the board meeting are still pending,” said Sarwar Sandhu, the director general of the Planning Division. “Once the board approves the minutes of the board meeting the development work will start,” he added.
Despite repeated attempts by this scribe, Farkhand Iqbal, chairman CDA, was not available for comments.