Govt hypocrisy: The plot thickens with Karachi’s evil new high-rise building law

Board can allow density wherever it likes, architects’ input ignored.

KARACHI:

Right next to Karachi Grammar School in Clifton on Khayaban-e-Saadi is a plot for a house where a builder wanted to put up 22-floor apartments called Noman Castello, Castello being the Italian word for castle. Panic ensued and pressure was applied. The project was shot down by the Sindh Environment Protection Agency in October 2010.

The agency was worried about the effect such a large building would have on the surrounding area. There was also the problem that residential plots can’t be individually commercialized or changed from low- to high-density. An apartment building would cause an additional burden to the scant water and electricity supplies, which would make existing residents suffer. Their privacy would be affected. The noise and air pollution would go up. The sunlight and wind flow would be obstructed.

The agency put its foot down and cancelled the permission granted by the city government’s master plan office and Sindh Building Control Authority.
Roland deSouza of non-profit Shehri brought this case up because it is an example of government doing the right thing—at least on the surface. “It was an excellent order,” he said, referring to Sepa’s report. “There are very wise people at Sepa, except they use [their wisdom] selectively.”

What doesn’t make sense is that just six months earlier Sepa had given the go-ahead for a much bigger project on the same Khayaban-e-Saadi, in fact, just one kilometer away. That mega-project became the first to benefit from a new law called the Sindh High Density Development Board Act, 2010. And on Saturday, at the Institute of Engineers of Pakistan, deSouza and architect Arif Belgaumi gave stellar presentations to the public on behalf of Shehri on this new piece of legislation and how it stands to destroy Karachi.

Karachi’s history of planning

Before you despair, consider this: Karachi did have the right formula for urban planning, once upon a time. In fact the decay only set in quite recently. DeSouza helpfully outlined the changes over the years to help position the new legislation.
We all know that in the years after 1947 there was a crisis in Karachi as people poured into the newly formed country. But then, in 1956, the Karachi Development Authority started work. It did over 40 residential, industrial and amenity schemes with the public’s input. This is how we got Taimuria, Nazimabad, North Nazimabad, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Kehkashan, Gulistan-e-Jauhar among many others. These schemes were planned well and each had zoning regulations on what was commercial and what was residential etc. This work continued till the 1970s. Land was available at an affordable price. In Gulistan-e-Jauhar Scheme 24, for example, the price was Rs14 per square yard, well within the budget of a labourer.
But from the 1980s onwards it went downhill. “The government generally gave up,” said deSouza, attributing this to its inability to handle the population explosion. He pegs the major turning point to 2002 with the arrival of the disastrous Karachi Building & Town Planning Regulations, 2002. It violated plot lease conditions, changed zoning regulations, plot ratios, the rules for parking space allowances. It did not pay any attention to whether the infrastructure existed (water connections etc).

“Post-2002 we saw the end of planning and control in Karachi,” said deSouza. “People started forming laws and schemes which have destroyed the city.” The people who made these laws didn’t know that town planning and building control are separate things. “The distinction has been blurred,” said deSouza. “Now building control does all the master planning.”
DeSouza mimicked how the authorities began to rationalize their approach to ‘planning’: “Oh, the population has gone up, we have a lot of people, so where we allowed 100 people [per square kilometer] we will allow 1,000. Oh, the population has gone up again, so where we allowed 1,000 people we will allow 10,000.” This was their idea of density.
An examination of the Sindh High Density Development Board Act, 2010 thus makes it amply clear for the experts, who know a thing or two about town planning that, “Planning has disappeared and has been replaced by the high-density bill.”



How the law was prepared

In 2008, the Karachi Building Control Authority requested over a dozen of Karachi’s most famous architects to help give recommendations on a special law it wanted to make for high density zones. Their names were: Habib Fida Ali, Akeel Bilgrami, Arshad Abdulla, Ejaz Ahad, Yawar Jilani, Shahab Ghani Khan, Mukhtar Hussain, Shamim Alam, Tariq Hassan, Ali Shamim Naqvi, Husnain Lotia, Arshad Faruqui, Christophe Polack, Khwaja Badiuzzaman.
The government said that the new law’s inspiration would be the Karachi Strategic Development Plan 2020—but this document had the vague goal of turning Karachi into a “world-class city” and scant on high density. The committee’s job was to advise the government on the nature of the law that would govern high-density zones. They were supposed to look at existing bylaws on floor area ratios and density to encourage new building development. They were supposed to look at existing infrastructure, human safety laws and see if urban design consultants were needed to help create these areas of high density. They were supposed to draft new bylaws as well. The list was a long one.

“When I first read this I was amazed that anybody would accept this as terms of reference for a part-time voluntary committee,” said Arif Belgaumi in his presentation. “This is a lot of work for even full-time people. For the life of me I don’t understand how this was taken on as a responsibility.”

Nonetheless, by January 2009 the committee had given its report to the KBCA. It had spoken to several key figures such as Arif Hasan and Prof Noman Ahmed in addition to city government officials.
Oddly, the chief or EDO of Works and Services, Amanullah Chachhar, explained that he just did repairs and maintenance on a limited budget and his department was not associated with any planning for the future growth of the city. “[This] was a bit surprising,” noted Belgaumi. “I think that works and services also deal with the fire department… and any growth in the city would require that.”

A rather realistic response came from the chief of the water board. Ghulam Arif Khan said that his agency didn’t have enough money which is why they wouldn’t be able to lay new pipes or supply water for any new high-density zones. The strangest input, though, came from the head of the city government’s master plan office. He said that the traditional downtown area needed de-densification (!) and he proposed pockets across Karachi where new high-density commercial zones could be developed to lift pressure on the old city. They were the ICT Center at Bin Qasim, a financial district at Mai Kolachi, the Northern Bypass and Super Highway, Shaheed-i-Millat Road, Hawkesbay Road, Shahrah-e-Faisal and Rashid Minhas roads.

The architects made three recommendations. The first one was to create an independent, supra or overarching planning and development authority which would direct Karachi’s many landowning agencies such as the city, federal and provincial governments and cantonment boards. “This is a very important recommendation because all cities require an independent planning commission,” said Belgaumi. “Karachi which is a city divided between many jurisdictions… desperately needs something like this.”
The second recommendation was that high-density zones would be a good idea within the city’s existing fabric. Belgaumi disagreed, saying that if the committee had just recommended a supra planning authority deciding on any high density zones would then be its job. He also felt it was sheer speculation for the committee to say that it felt high density zones would be “a good idea” because they would develop a central city core, revitalize historic districts. He was also surprised to see the committee recommend an urban design consultant. “Rather than a planning agency, we have a preconceived idea,” he added. A consultant will come in and just tell you what you want to hear.
He did feel, though, that the third recommendation for an oversight committee, like the first one, was solid.



The new law is passed

As should have perhaps been expected, the government did exactly what it wanted, ignoring the architects. The new law was a far cry from what they had recommended. It didn’t mention any supra development authority and certainly no oversight committee. It recommended international consultants. “The government took what it wanted to hear and formed the high density board,” said Belgaumi.

The Sindh High Density Development Board Bill, 2010 was passed by the Sindh Assembly on May 31, 2010 and after the governor assented to it on June 20 it was published as the Sindh High Density Development Board Act, 2010. And as Roland deSouza put it: “The Sindh High Density Development Board has the potential to convert large areas at the stroke of a pen.”

A glaring stupidity was that the new law didn’t even define what a high-rise was. This board does not have any independent planners on it. It was headed by the governor as chairman, chief minister as co-chairman and it had members like the chief secretary, nazims, chief controller of buildings. “There was 5% of the upper income folks planning at the expense of 95% of the poor,” commented deSouza. None of these bureaucrats were by qualification town planners. And so, concluded Belgaumi: “People in government are deciding the shape of the city.”

By September 2013, though a change was made—the governor was dropped from the board. This change came as the Sindh High Density Development (Amendment) Act, 2013 on August 26, 2013.
When it came out the architects protested. The bill did not incorporate any of the principles of town planning. “You pay for it, you can do it,” seemed to be its central message, according to deSouza. They held a press conference clarifying that this was not what they had told the government. They said, according to Belgaumi, that it “would create an entity that would have discretionary powers to do whatever it felt like with development in the city”.
But it was perhaps too late. The rules and regulations were issued a year later.

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What the law changed 

One change that the law made will affect our city for decades to come. The Sindh government removed height-related setbacks or restrictions which protected the environment around a building. “Buildings that are high cast a shadow and close off sunlight,” explained deSouza.
It allows unlimited amalgamation or joining of plots. Previously you could only amalgamate plots of a certain size. So now you could buy up three plots and put up a 60-floor building regardless of its surrounding environment. “It’s a hit-and-run situation,” said deSouza. “We will live with the effects of this for years.” Moreover, the people in the katchi abadies are the first ones to be moved out in these cases. Belgaumi warned that now that Shireen Jinnah Colony has been marked for high-density people will start buying up those plots.
The new law also removed the plot ratios and increased the size of the buildings from 1:5.5 to 1.8 for 3,000 t0 5,000 sq yard plots and to 1:12 for plots larger than 5,000 sq yards. In New York City, the plot ratio is 1:15 but for this they make sure there is water, electricity, parks, parking spots. In Karachi, no consideration has been made for the infrastructure or environment that goes with it.
If you look at the map of areas marked out for high-density zones you will see that most of them are areas that don’t look like they need any further densification. “All of these areas, it would seem to me, would require serious master planning to convert them,” said Belgaumi. “There is no provision for that under this board.”

The new law also allows the board to commercialise residential plots but without allowing the public to be able to object. This means, effectively, that a high-rise shopping mall could go up right next to your house and you wouldn’t be able to say anything about it.
But worst of all, perhaps it was time for architects to realize how useless it was to work with the government. Their input just gave this new law “unwarranted legitimacy”.

The US Supreme Court provides a sobering lesson from the American experience. “It was realized, after bitter experience with suburban land speculations in the 1920s, that the interest of the owner and the developer of raw land is sometimes temporary and purely financial, while the urban community must live with the results for generations afterward.” The big businesses behind these high-rises will make their money and leave. We will be left to live in the city they have created.

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Turning haram into halal

One of Karachi’s most useful laws is the Environmental Protection Act of 1997 which also protects the built environment. “Buildings are part of the environment and they produce the most pollution in Karachi,” explained engineer Roland deSouza of non-profit Shehri-CBE at a discussion on the new Sindh High Density Development Board Act, 2010 held at the Institute of Engineers of Pakistan on Saturday.
The EPA 1997 said that before a high-rise building could go up, public hearings needed to be held and a committee of experts had to weigh in. Either an Initial Environment Examination or IEE was needed or, for larger projects, an Environmental Impact Assessment or EIA. “You couldn’t just go ahead and build,” said deSouza. This way people living in the area where the building in planned can come to public hearings and ask whether the additional water will come from, hospitals, parks and space for parking. These public hearings would have been crucial to high-rise projects in Clifton which are going to attract 3,000 more cars in the narrow strip by Shahrah-e-Firdousi.

However, laws are only what we make of them. DeSouza was shocked to hear from an Environment Protection Agency officer in Islamabad that: “EIA’s ka kaam he haram ko halal banana.”

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An abridged version of this article was published in The Express Tribune, July 8th, 2014.