Stop high rise buildings coming up in residential areas
The Urban Development Authority (UDA) has demarcated certain areas as residential areas, others as commercial areas and some as mixed development areas. Unfortunately when you look at the unusual rate of high rise buildings coming up in residential areas and marshy lands in Colombo and the suburbs, one cannot believe that this demarcation is still in force.
It is surprising to note that there are about 2,000 unauthorized buildings in Colombo and a good number of them are high rise buildings. Nobody can believe how this has happened.
In most cases the builders have already sold the apartments and vanished and their whereabouts cannot be traced.
The UDA is in a dilemma to take action against the current occupants as they are not the culprits. When a building is coming up why do the local authorities not inspect and check the approvals? Without a certificate of conformity (COC) how do these build- ings get electricity and water supply? There are high rise buildings coming up with seven, 12, 15 storeys in residential areas where the access road is hardly 20 feet. This is definitely not development. None of these buildings coming up in residential areas is built with foreign investments. They are all on local bank loans.
No institution or authority has done a proper feasibility study to say whether this small country can afford to have so many high rise buildings. Also will there be people to occupy these buildings? Some have built high rise buildings as apartment buildings and rent them out to run commercial establishments with no parking facilities but illegally use neighbourhood access roads for parking. This is a big problem for residents. There is enough land in our country to build houses. Therefore who wanted this amount of high rise buildings in Colombo?
The Central Bank once failed in regulating a number of finance companies and thousands of innocent depositors lost their hard earned money. At least this time the CB should advise the banks whether they are being sensible in allowing loans to apartment builders, before the banks get into serious trouble.
Some high rise buildings are built in cul-de-sac areas (where the access road at one end is blocked off). In an emergency, how can fire engines or ambulances come in ? Is this situation not a threat to the existing neighbourhood ?
In order to put up a high rise building you need to do heavy piling and this causes serious noise pollution and considering the aged piling system we have, no surrounding house or building will escape without cracks. In most cases structural damage is caused to neighbouring houses but seldom do the builders repair them with their money. The poor residents have to go behind whatever the authority to ask for compensation or get it repaired by those high rise builders. If the heavy piling is done and the high rise building is already constructed, still the houses nearby can get affected depending on the strength of the land especially the soil conditions of the area. The Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) will not do soil tests before issuing permits.
No one assesses the possible traffic that will be added to the existing traffic of the area before allowing high rise buildings to come up. Garbage collection, sewerage and vehicle parking will cause havoc in residential areas when high rise buildings are allowed.
People built houses in residential areas to live in harmony with the neighbourhood. A good neighbourhood is always like a united family. They have their own neighbourhood watch, recreation, friendship and so on but with high rise buildings coming up in residential areas all that will be destroyed and our decades-old living style in Sri Lanka will come to an end. For generations we lived in the “Garden City of Colombo” but sad to say it will soon become a “stupid concrete jungle city of Colombo” when nobody can prosper.
The situation is very serious. Let the residents of Colombo and its suburbs get together and form an organisation to protect our residential houses and the traditional neighbourhood and ask the Government to stop high-rise buildings coming up in residential areas and also restore the existing residents rights to live in harmony. Sarath Wickremasinghe
Colombo 5