Sundar Nagar residents demand approval to build extra floor

SUNDAR NAGAR WAS FORMED IN THE 1950S BY THE LAND AND DEVELOPMENT OFFICE AS A PLOTTED COLONY

Nestled in a quaint corner of the Capital amid lush green trees and clean parks, Sundar Nagar is one of the elite localities of the city. However, residents here, too, are facing space crunch since it falls in the Lutyens’ Bungalow Zone (LBZ).

The zone is spread over 3,000 acres and plagued by stringent building norms, which do not allow construction in the entire area that has bungalows as well as plotted developments.

“Over the years our families have grown and we can’t even construct an extra room. We want to be allowed to construct an extra floor, where there is a barsati now in most buildings. Around 30% buildings here already have a second floor. However, in 1988, since Sundar Nagar was included in the LBZ, no more construction could take place,” RK Khanna, one of the oldest residents of Sunder Nagar, said.

Sundar Nagar was formed in the 1950s by the Land and Development Office (L&DO) as a plotted colony and is named after Sundar Bawa Singh, who was the first person to buy a plot there and start a colony.

Sanjeev Desai, vice-president of the Sundar Nagar RWA, wondered how a plotted colony could be included in the LBZ. “A bungalow has four sides open. Houses in Sundar Nagar have a common wall. Then how can this area arbitrarily be a part of the Lutyens’ Bungalow Zone? We are asking for an amendment in the bylaws so that we are able to construct a second floor,” Desai said.

The Delhi Urban Arts Co m m i s s i o n ( D UAC ) ha s recently given recommendations to revise LBZ guidelines which may be accepted by the urban development (UD) ministry. As Hindustan Times had pointed out government sources had said that the DUAC, which submitted its report to the Urban Development ministry last week, has recommended that while core areas that were part of the original LBZ — mostly in and around Rajpath — should not be tinkered with, building norms should be relaxed in others areas falling in the zone.