The Bangladesh Institute of Planners on Wednesday said that vested interests became active in suspending and reviewing the Detailed Area Plan for their business profit leaving the city more unlivable and unplanned one.
The BIP came up with the comment while the Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh and Institute of Architects Bangladesh, among others, were putting pressure on the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha to suspend the Detailed Area Plan and review it.
鈥楾o control population density in the capital, the current DAP reduced building height which aggrieved several vested quarters for their business interests. But in the context of livability, we must control population density of the city,鈥� said Adil Mohammad Khan, president of the BIP and urban planning professor at Jahangirnagar University.
He said that in the past the same people compelled the authorities to revise planning documents for their own purpose turning the city into the current unsustainable and unplanned one.
The BIP also demanded publishing a white paper by the interim government after a proper investigation into the changes that were made.
Former president of BIP Akter Mahmud said that the vested groups were concerned about only the building height while a planning document consisted of many other things which were not their field of interest.
鈥楾here is no scope for suspending the DAP. We cannot invite more people to the city without providing them with utilities and better living facilities,鈥� he said, adding that a flat without light, air and livability cannot be acceptable.
The IAB at a press conference on Monday urged the authorities concerned to suspend the DAP until a new one or a revised DAP would be in place.
IAB president Khandaker Shabbir Ahmed said that there were several major anomalies in the existing DAP which was finalised in an opaque process that created discrimination and a scope for destroying green areas, wetlands and flood flow zones.
BIP former president Fazle Reza Sumon said that DAP might be reviewed but not for the interest of the businesspeople but for the ordinary people.
The planners said that after every budget announcement the REHAB demanded that the government should allow people to invest in housing for whitening illegally earned money.
鈥楽ome corrupt people owned 20/22 flats while many people remained homeless,鈥� he said criticising the scope.
Urban planner Salma A Shafi and Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology professor and BIP treasurer Musleh Uddin Hasan, among others, spoke at the event.