The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Builders welcome Second Master Plan City PULSE

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Monday, Sep 08, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Builders welcome Second Master Plan City PULSE

Aloysius Xavier Lopez

— Photo: K.V.Srinivasan

Exchanging notes: (From left) M.K.Sundaram of Chozha Foundations, Prakash Challa, MD, SSPDL Group, and T. Chitty Babu, Chairman and MD, Akshaya Homes having a discussion in Chennai on Sunday.

CHENNAI: Welcoming the second master plan for the city, builders have voiced their views on its prospects and a few problems associated with the master plan.

“A new master plan after three decades is certainly a good development. Builders are studying the plan and discussions are on. We have found many positive developments. There are also some deficiencies which may be rectified later,” says M.K. Sundaram, Chairman of Builders Association of India (south centre).

“So much relaxation has been provided in the master plan. Some rules such as those relating to parking have been tightened. Now it is the responsibility of people to follow the rules,” says R. Kumar, Managing Director of Navin’s.

The provision for raising the formed ground level up to one metre in the new master plan will be helpful in tackling the problems such as water logging in some areas, they feel. “The reduction of the requirement of the drive-way for the car park from 3.5 to 3 m and the turning radius from 4.5 to 4 m has come after much effort on the part of the builders. The requirement was outmoded in this era of power steering and better automobile engineering. We had to demonstrate this to the officials concerned before they accepted our request,” said Mr. Sundaram.

“The roads near schools should be more than 12 m wide for better safety of the students. But the new master plan allows schools near 7.2-m-wide roads. Similarly allowing film theatres near roads just 9 m wide will increase traffic congestion and is not safe. The road should be at least 18 m wide near a film theatre where people come in large numbers,” he added.

“The 10 per cent provision for low income group dwellings in residential development of land more than one hectare is a very good move in a social angle. But there are also some constraints. The issues such as high maintenance cost for the low income group dwelling units in a high income neighbourhood may create problems later. So the builders mostly may prefer constructing the low income dwelling units in a separate location of their choice within a 2 km radius,” says Mr. Sundaram. “With Chennai increasingly experiencing small tremors, the foundations of buildings have to be made stronger. We now construct houses suited for Earthquake Prone Zone III. This increases the input costs,” says T. Chitty Babu, Chairman and MD Akshaya Homes.

“The provisions of low income group housing can be successfully carried out if relevant tax concessions are given to the private developers,” he adds. “The government can make provisions for construction of low income group housing in the public-private partnership mode. This would address the problem of low income group housing effectively,” says Prakash Chella, MD SSPDL Group. “Another question is the affordability of low income group housing. The low income rentals like the Singapore model will be a better solution,” says Mr. Prakash.

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