KGS parents, ex-students meet to fight 22-storey project

KGS set to take on Noman Builders in a tooth-and-nail battle to avoid the construction of Noman Castello.

KARACHI: The Karachi Grammar School (KGS) is making headlines once again. However, this time it’s not for admissions or academic achievements, but for taking on Noman Builders in a tooth-and-nail battle to avoid the construction of Noman Castello, barely 100 metres from the KGS junior and kindergarten branches on Khayaban-e-Saadi.

Hundreds of parents attended a lengthy meeting at the school’s college section on Monday morning to express their concern and agree to a line of action in response to reports that the building may soon be built. According to those who attended the meeting, presided over by principal Dr GC Platts, the agenda was to inform all the parents, and former students, that the building, to be built on one of the residential plots facing Khayaban-e-Saadi, presented a serious security risk to the children enrolled and studying at the kindergarten and junior sections.

The principal asked the parents to consider the repercussions of the project and unite in resisting it if they thought that it would jeopardise the safety of their children.

“Schools definitely are a soft target,” said Maarif Shah, a concerned parent, while talking to The Express Tribune later on. “Intelligence reports showed last year that terrorists want to target schools to create chaos.”

On the other hand, another parent Shafaq Sheikh wasn’t sure if matters were as bad. “On a personal [level], I do feel security is a concern but where aren’t we faced with a threat? We send the kids to play soccer at Rahat Park and there is a masjid right next to it. I am actually more fearful of that place.”

Requesting anonymity, another parent, who has two children studying at KGS, put forth an alternate cause of concern. “The security risk isn’t really the major issue. For me, it’s more of the traffic congestion, setting a trend for commercialisation in the area and invasion of privacy that really matters. Down the line, yes, this may develop into a security risk but at the moment there is no direct security risk.”

However, as Zarrar Khuhro, another Grammarian parent shares his concerns, the case hardly seems to be that simple. “We don’t know what kind of internal security the building will enforce,” he said, adding that girls play sports outside and anyone could take advantage of being in a taller building to look down at the grounds.

There is a stay order on the construction of the 22-storey building. It was passed on a petition filed by several parties, including residents and the school itself. However, the development that precipitated the meeting seemed to be the finalisation of an environmental impact assessment (EIA) report by the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), according to which several concerns raised in the petition were addressed - and in most cases were dismissed as being without basis.

For instance, the EIA report, which is also available on the school’s website, says that residents have voiced the complaint that the building could lead to traffic congestion. It finds, however, that this is without cause and goes on to say that the building’s construction will in fact help the traffic congestion because the first seven floors will be set aside for parking. As the principal read this out, several guffaws were heard from the parents, since clearly they disagreed at the suggestion that was being made in the EIA.

“What guarantee does anyone have that the builders won’t convert these floors in office space later?” argued Maarif Shah. “After all, that’s where the money is?” That doesn’t seem to be far from the truth, as according to short interview over the telephone with a representative of  Noman Builders, Azhar Hussain, each office costs between Rs25 million to Rs30 million. The EIA report put the project’s worth at a total of Rs174 million. Hussain also said that plans for project have been temporarily shelved to perhaps mid-2011.

Furthermore, the EIA concluded that the construction of the building would in no way impact the cultural and architectural aesthetics of the area - which is more or less residential, barring the two campuses. In its words, the construction of a “beautiful” building would add to the area’s aesthetics. To this, the principal said that the EIA was getting into the business of making a value judgment, which seemed to be beyond the assessment’s mandate or brief.

Some excerpts of the assessment seem to be glorifying the project as another parent, who did not wish to be named pointed out. “In some places it almost seems as if the builders have written the report themselves.” The excerpt in question is: “This EIA Study finds that launching of the Noman Castello Project would respond to the principles of sustainable development that aim at ‘socially equitable and economically viable development to improve the quality of life for all citizens of the Earth, without altering the balance in the ecosystem’.”

The presentation given by the principal was followed by a lively question-and-answer session with several participants speaking to the audience. They included lawyers, who all happen to have children at the school, informing the others of the options available. One lawyer, Barrister Abdur Rahman, noted that success would come only if the parents all spoke out against this and that the issue was not necessarily of the commercialisation of one plot but of the whole road - ie Khayaban-e-Saadi.

Other measures included raising the issue in the media and somehow bringing it to the notice of the Supreme Court. The case, the parents were told, is however pending before the Sindh High Court.

They were also asked to attend the public hearing where the EIA report would be discussed - at 10 am on October 14. For this another meeting has been scheduled at the school’s college section, in the auditorium, for September 29, at 8 am. All parents and former students have been asked to attend.

with additional input from one of our correspondents

Published in The Express Tribune, September 28^th, 2010.