If you left it to the Chennai Metropolitan Development Corporation, practically every road and street of the city would be filled with multi-storey buildings with no consideration for the topography or the surroundings. Thus you could be living quietly in a residential area and wake up one day to find that commercial complexes, hospitals, wedding halls and schools have come up all around you. And they all look upon you as an interloper. It is like Rip Van Winkle waking up to a nightmare. All of this was brought to light when the High Court of Madras recently pronounced a judgement.
The news was published on the day of the elections and so could have passed unnoticed. Briefly put, a set of residents of an upmarket locality in the city protested when they found plans for a multi-storey building in their locality duly approved by CMDA. They represented to the CMDA that it violated the layout condition of 1968 notified by the Corporation that each plot could have only one dwelling unit and what was more, the building could cover only two-third of the plot area. But the CMDA refused to take this into consideration stating that all such conditions had been nullified following the Tamil Nadu Combined Development and Building Rules (TNCDBR), 2019. In short, no consultation with local residents was necessary when their life is just about to be disrupted permanently. All we need to do is to take shelter behind a rule that was passed.
The residents were however of a tougher mindset and approached the courts. The High Court felt there was justice in their contention and said that the TNCDBR 2019 does not nullify the previous layout conditions. On reading this, the only feeling was a pang of regret for several localities of the city that have already been ruined beyond recognition by the application of blanket approvals with no consideration for ground reality.
The CMDA may be a body with many years of experience, but when it comes to local area sensitivities, it is completely lacking. It has been the contention of this paper for years that the CMDA’s master plans are always just that — a master document that has no exceptions. Thus localities such as George Town, Mylapore and Thiruvallikeni, are subject to the same rules as those such as ECR or OMR, assuming that these latter do not come under some panchayat and are subject to the Corporation’s jurisdiction. The only guidelines pertain to street width and permissible floor space index (FSI). Here too, changes apply uniformly. Thus the proximity of a metro station to a building will determine its FSI, irrespective of whether the locality is Mannady or Anna Nagar. Which is why, George Town these days is full of giant multi-storey buildings cutting off all light and air to neighbouring buildings.
The plight of T Nagar is another example. What was once a beautifully planned layout has been systematically destroyed by rampant commercialisation, aided by freely given permissions and flagrant violations. The damage caused by this lack of awareness of local area requirements is alarming to say the least. It also poses a sense of insecurity among old-time residents of an area. They find themselves subject to brute market forces. An administration that is expected to protect its taxpayers becomes their enemy in the face of commercial interest.
The last word has not yet been said in the courtroom battle that has brought this malaise to light. But it does show that there are residents willing to fight for their rights and live on terms that they had planned for, and not those that get imposed on them.