Selling out those green spaces

Battling a well-entrenched builder-politician nexus, Bengaluru had long lost its battle to preserve the city’s once cherished greenery. But in its desperation to cling onto the remaining green pockets, a new sinister threat has arisen: The Karnataka Urban Development Authority (Amendment) bill.

Passed in a hurry without debate on July 19, the legislation is designed to shrink open spaces and bring in more concrete! Builders and the realty lobby will clearly be the beneficiaries, and Bengalureans, the losers.

Demolishing claims that the bill will not affect Bengaluru, a similar amendment in the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) rules for new layouts is just round the corner. The Authority now proposes to make suitable changes in its Revised Master Plan 2031.

Setting a precedent
The legislation has clearly set a precedent. Also on the government’s agenda are amendments to the Bangalore Metropolitan Region Development Authority (BMRDA) rules, the Bangalore International Airport Area Planning Authority (BIAAPA) and the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Planning Authority (BMICPA).

Urban Development Department insiders have disclosed these plans to effectively reduce share of open spaces from 15% to 10% and civic amenity sites from 10% to 5%. The July 19 legislation has already paved the way for this rule to be applied in Hosakote, Doddaballapur, Ramanagaram and Kanakapura, all on the outskirts of the city.

The intentions are clear: Having already encroached and played havoc with the city’s lakes and stormwater drains, the land grabbers have set their eyes on parks and playgrounds. The illegal and clandestine take-over of the open spaces, perfected in the past, will now have a legal backing.

Parks and playgrounds have always been prime targets for the land sharks. Citizens have often risen up against open encroachments. But not many were as brave as Girish Ganguli of Nanjundeshwara Layout in JP Nagar 5th phase. He fought a long legal battle to save a park that was to make way for a builder’s private road. The road, steam-rolling through a people’s park, would lead to a multi-storey apartment.

Individual battles
But Ganguli’s battle was not easy. His repeated complaints to the civic agencies, mainly the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), had fallen on deaf ears. He eventually moved the court and won the case. Yet his effort is only the silver-lining in a gloomy scenario, where citizens’ voices are gagged.

There are many more such instances of open encroachments. Barely a stone’s throwaway from the BBMP head office is the Palike’s Bannappa Park. But this has now been occupied by the police department and slum dwellers.

In Banashankari 3rd Stage, residents are fighting to get back one acre of land reserved for a park at Kathriguppe Water Tank area. Koramangala residents have been crying hoarse for a playground, although big builders have managed to grab prime land in the locality and construct multi-storey buildings.

The BDA has a justification to amend its rules to shrink the open spaces: As a senior official there puts it, land is a major constraint in Bengaluru and the demand for housing and infrastructure is rising. The attempt is to bring a legislation that aids more space for houses in layouts to be formed in the future.

Existing BDA rules allocate only 50% of the total land in a layout for housing/commercial housing. Twenty per cent is set aside for roads, 15% for parks and 10% for civic amenities.

Bad planning
Urban planning experts question this rationale that housing space can be maximised only by shrinking greenery. They draw attention to how Singapore, the city-state with the world’s highest population density (about 7,000 people per sq km), has managed to provide adequate housing without compromising its forests and parks.

Bad planning is what ails Bengaluru. “The move to shrink the open spaces is short-sighted and giving in to the pressure from lobbies. Nobody is worried what will happen to the city in 25 years. There is an intellectual vacuum in the government,” points out an urban architect, well-versed with the working of the civic agencies. 

Last year, an analysis by a Vision Group member had shown that in 34 BBMP wards, the proportion of the area reserved for open spaces was less than 1%. Five wards had no open space at all. This was more pronounced in unplanned, unregulated layouts that have mushroomed across the city. Only old planned layouts such as Jayanagar, Sampangiramanagar, J P Nagar and Hanumanthanagar were found to have adequate parks and playgrounds in line with the rules.

The trend was clear: Wards with high population density tend to allocate less space for parks and civic amenities. But the problem was poor planning, regulation and a willingness to negotiate that fine line between housing and the environment. The new legislation and the proposed amendments to the BDA, BMRDA, BIAAPA and BMICPA Acts, warn experts, could tweak that balance heavily in favour of the real estate lobby.


*The Karnataka Urban Development Authority (Amendment) bill has shrunk share of open spaces in residential layouts from 15% to 10% and civic amenity sites from 10% to 5%.

*The legislation, although not applicable to Bengaluru city, has set a precedent. On the government’s agenda are similar amendments to rules governing BDA, BMRDA, BIAAPA, BMICPA.

*Existing BDA rules allocate only 50% of the total land in a layout for housing/commercial housing. 20% is set aside for roads, 15% for parks and 10% for civic amenities.