Urban planning: WCLA will ‘enforce zoning regulations from next week’

Official hopes that completion of restoration work inside Delhi Gate will change traders’ perception about the drive

LAHORE:

The Walled City of Lahore Authority has developed a map with residential and commercial zones distinctly demarcated on it. The WCLA will issue notification in the next week to warn against commercial use of buildings in the residential zones, WCLA Conservation and Planning director Najam-us-Saqib Sheikh said on Friday.

He was speaking at a meeting organised by the Lahore Conservation Society (LCS) to discuss issues pertaining to commercialisation of buildings and the WCLA’s conservation efforts in the Walled City. The LCS is collaborating with the WCLA in its conservation campaign.

Sheikh said traders in some areas of the Walled City had earlier put up resistance to the authority’s renovation campaign. However, he hoped that completion of restoration work at shops inside the Delhi Gate (under package 2 of its restoration plan) would help change perception of traders in other Walled City markets about the campaign. He said traders inside Dehli Gate were expressing interest in renovation work.

Sheikh said that they had not encountered any opposition to the renovation work from residents. He added that by and large the WCLA’s social mobilisation teams had been successful in generating support for renovation projects.

He said that if needed the WCLA could discuss with traders’ associations the possibility of relocation of markets to areas outside the Walled City. He said during an earlier round of talks some traders in Akbari Mandi had been open to the idea of relocation. They [traders] had stated that chances of expansion of their business were low at the current location in Akbari Mandi,” he said. However, he said most traders were still opposed to the idea of relocation in other markets. He said the WCLA’s effort to discuss the possibility of relocation with shopkeepers at Azam Clothe Market had not turned out well. Most of them believed that there was potential for expanding their business within the area, he added.

LCS president Kamil Khan Mumtaz suggested that the relocation programme be based on research on market linkages to ensure that business activity was not affected as a result. He said relocation of markets away from the Walled City should be done after taking into account the impact of the move on the entire city.

Architect Raza Ali suggested that before discussing new locations for the markets the forum should deliberate whether or not a market needed to be moved out of the Walled City. He said market’s accessibility should be taken into consideration to decide if a market needed relocation. He said because of difficulty of accessing the market from the main road shopkeepers at places like Azam Cloth Market should have an incentive to relocate to a more accessible location.

Discussing why traders preferred keeping shops inside the Walled City, urban planner Mazhar Iqbal said commercial property in the area was highly valuable under the current arrangement. He said the traders had no incentive for leaving their expensive properties and moving to a new location by the WCLA.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 9^th, 2015.