The city changed the zoning from residential to commercial without conducting an environmental impact assessment.
KARACHI: This is with reference to reports in your city section in recent days on an initiative being taken by parents and former students of Karachi Grammar School to prevent a multi-storey building being built close to the junior campus.
Many people are seeing this as an irrelevant rich people’s issue. That is not the case. People usually act out of self-interest which is neither unusual nor deplorable. The important thing is to see if there is some general good that can come out of such actions. Yes, there are loads of examples of poorer communities where the rights of citizens to a clean and safe environment have been trampled by the interests of developers. Often the residents in these communities don’t have the resources to fight. It is also rare that a third party will step in to take up the fight on behalf of the affected residents. The issue is not simply one of a developer’s right to build a high-rise building over a school’s concerns over traffic congestion, security and provision of utility services. The issue is that the city government chose to change the zoning of this street and others in the area from residential to commercial without conducting an environmental impact assessment. An environmental impact is not limited to obvious ‘green’ issues like pollution, loss of trees and degradation of animal habitat but also the detrimental effect on the quality of existing human habitation.
KGS parents should question the rationale and appropriateness of the zoning change made by the City District Government of Karachi without considering the impact on residents and institutions. A successful challenge will go a long way to restricting zoning changes driven only by developer interests. This will set a precedent which will have a positive impact on future challenges in other parts of the city.
Arif Belgaumi
Architect
Published in The Express Tribune, October 2nd, 2010.
