“The Grand Hyatt administration has been allowed to build a fourth tower in addition to the existing three towers to compensate the lessee against the height restriction,” says a senior CDA official. PHOTO: FILE.
ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has allowed the construction of an additional tower at an under construction five-star hotel complex just to hide its negligence.
Earlier, the CDA allowed the administration of the Grand Hyatt to build three 730-foot towers near Jinnah Convention Centre, neglecting the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) rules, which only permit buildings up to 300 feet high within a 15-kilometre radius of the airport.
“The Grand Hyatt administration has been allowed to build a fourth tower in addition to the existing three towers to compensate the lessee against the height restriction,” a senior CDA official told The Express Tribune.
The amended agreement between the consortium of three firms — Bismillah, Niagra and Paragon (BNP) — and the CDA was reached after the CAA and the Pakistan Air Force raised objections over the height of the building.
In 2005, BNP offered the highest bid of Rs4.89 billion for a 13.5 acre plot. Consequently, the city managers approved 47-storey buildings on the site.
Under the agreement, BNP group was supposed to pay 15 per cent (Rs732.352 million) of the total amount of the plot in advance and the remaining 85 per cent was to be paid over a period of 15 years in equal annual instalments of Rs270.7 million.
However, BNP paid no instalment for two years, and an amended lease was executed in 2007. Under the amended lease, BNP was asked to pay Rs120 million in advance, with the remained coming in instalments of Rs335 million per year. The BNP group paid the advance amount of Rs120 million, but the remaining instalments are still to be paid.
So far, BNP group has paid off Rs 852.352 million of the Rs4.89 billion due.
According to CDA sources, the BNP group has justified delaying payments by referring to the height restriction issue .
A recent judicial commission report said that, “Due to non-assessment of eventual bottlenecks, the payment was sufficiently prolonged for a period of eight years, which has brought about a considerable monetary loss to the CDA.”
The commission’s report said the CDA did not take prior permission to relax the CAA’s height restriction, and due to the eventual objection of the authorities, the CDA was forced to rework the payment schedule and the lease.
The report says that even after rescheduling the lease, BNP group did not pay the instalments. “The lease amount, outstanding till date, shall be recovered from the lessee by all means including coercive measures,” the report recommended.
The commission has also recommended strict action against the delinquent officers who struck the agreement with the group without taking CAA rules and other issues into consideration.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 29th, 2013.
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The investors have constructed a structural base capable of supporting a 45 story tower, that capital will go to waste. Also, when bidding, a higher price was obviously offered because of greater payback opportunity due to more space because of more floors, this obviously a great mishap by the incompetent CDA.