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Another car park to perish

City planners decry DCC move to build skyscraper at Karwan Bazar

TAWFIQUE ALI
Dhaka City Corporation is set to turn yet another car park into a high-rise commercial complex at Karwan Bazar in blatant violation of Dhaka city's master plan and town improvement act
“We are doing groundwork for die project and we will float the tender by the end of this month/ said Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) Mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka.
It should be at least a 20-storey complex and first three or four floors of it will have car parking spaces. DCC will invite a real estate developer to construct the building, said Khoka.
ASM Ismail, chief architect of the department of architecture under the works ministry, said DCC just cannot do it; the parking space is not under the ownership of DCC.
DCC cannot use the land commercially and then hand it over to private ownership, he added.
The then Dhaka Improvement Trust (D1T) in the early 1950s earmarked the car parking spaces in commercial areas like Karwan Bazar, Motijheel and Dilkusha in the master plan of the capital.
A number of parking lots were handed over to DCC for maintenance by an order during the tenure of military dictator Ershad.
City planners and architects denounced the DCC move saying it will contribute to worsening traffic congestion in the capital.
It is not understandable why DCC felt the necessity of constructing such a high rise when it miserably failed to provide city dwellers with their basic amenities, they added.
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Prof Sarwar Jahan, president of Bangladesh Institute of Planners, said, “It Is not acceptable from the perspective of a city plan."
The Dhaka Metropolitan Development Plan (DMDP) included the place tn serve as a parking space in Its plan for the residents of Karwan Bazar and its adjacent areas, Jahan added.
A commercial high rise will not serve the actual purpose because people belonging to the would-be high-rise complex will eat up whatever parking facility is left at the kitchen market, said Prof Jahan.
Mubasshar Hussein, president of Institute of Architects Bangladesh, said DCC had made the same blunders by designating a number of spaces as parking lots in the city.
The parking lot at Motijheel has had an open car parking facility since 1970. DCC built a 30-storey high rise at the site contributing to the traffic mess in the area, he said.
"Personal gain might be the reason behind city mayor's interest in taking up such venture," he added.
Despite repeated attempts, DCC Chief Engineer Mohammad Abdul Kadir could not be contacted. This correspondent was told by his personal assistant to meet the public relations officer, who too was not available.
DCC town planner Sirajul Islam, said, “1 am not aware of the car park at Karwan Bazar."
Unauthorised shops and offices of different political parties have been using the car parking space for decades with DCC nod. DCC allowed 160 makeshift grocery shops to run their business there.
The Joint forces recovered the car park from illegal occupants in the last week of January 2007 during the caretaker government evicting several hundred illegal struc \ tures.
A total of 16 shops on the west fringe of the parking area are still running their businesses as DCC formally leased out the land to those shop owners.
The parking space remains littered with groceries, rickshaw vans and garbage during daytime and it turns into a safe haven for drug addicts and floating prostitutes at night.
Urban Primary Health Care Project of DCC set up a public toilet at the site a couple of years back, which is now in dilapidated condition.
Syed Kudrat Ullah, the then superintendent engineer of DCC's Traffic Engineering Division and project director of Dhaka Urban Transport Project (DUTP), said they decided to construct a pavement there in May 2008 and the project was approved too.
Khoka could not answer why the project has not been implemented over the last two years.
Former mayor Mohammad Hanif leased out a public road in the market area to the wholesale traders.
Sadeque Hossain Khoka also leased out a designated two-bigha children's park to the wholesale vegetable traders allegedly through a dubious deal.
Rajuk Chairman Md Nurul Huda said that Rajuk is not powerful enough to handle DCC's activities.
“However. I will look into the Karwan Bazar car parking issue," he said.