Even as Maradu municipality is grappling with the issue of demolition of four apartment complexes following the Supreme Court order citing CRZ violations, there has been an increase in the number of applications in the district to regularize structures which came up in violation of building rules.
Data with the district town and country planning office show that there has been an increase in the number of applications to regularize structures constructed in violation of building rules.
Officials attribute this to the exemptions being extended by the successive governments due to electoral pressures.
In the past four years, the number of applications to regularize illegal structures doubled from 94 in 2014 to 185 in 2018. The number of applications, though came down to 34 in 2016.
A committee, comprising senior town planner, district collector, regional joint director of urban affairs or deputy director of panchayats and secretary in the local body, scrutinises the applications and regularizes these applications.
But regularization of buildings is not applicable to structures that were constructed in violation of CRZ rules, fire safety norms and structural stability. Regularization is allowed in matters related to shortage of open space, car parking, access, coverage area, floor area ratio, rainwater harvesting, sewage plants and other issues while constructing a building.
Officials say the exemptions given by the successive governments to the illegal buildings lead to mushrooming of more such buildings. Despite the department approaching the state government citing the rising number of applications, the latter is not paying attention to the issue.
“Regularizing unauthorized buildings is not a right practice. The government desists from demolishing the illegal structures on humanitarian grounds. But issuing notification on regular intervals results in more and more people coming up with applications for regularizing the illegal structures. Each political party compete to give exemptions in regularizing the structures eyeing vote share,” said a senior town planning official in Thiruvananthapuram.
The department invites applications when the government issues notifications at regular intervals. The current notification was issued in February 2018 to regularize the unauthorized constructions carried out before July 31, 2017.
If a building is found constructed beyond the permissible limit, compounding fee is imposed on it in order to regularize it depending on the floor area ratio.
“Though unauthorized buildings are regularized after remitting the fixed fine amount, it is not applicable to all violations. If there is no sewage plant or rainwater harvesting system, we cannot regularize the building by imposing fine. We will regularize it only by making the builder construct these structures,” said a local self-government department official in Thiruvananthapuram.
