A bold, opportune decision, say experts
Saturday, 4 August 2007
Urban and transportation experts and green activists Friday hailed the stripping of the unauthorised floors of the 22-storey Rangs Bhaban.
They asked government agencies to make sure no such colossal structures are erected unapproved in future.
Urban planner Nazrul Islam, engineer KM Maniruzzaman and environmentalist Naser Khan told bdnews24.com that the demolition decision was a well-timed and necessarily bold move.
The government Thursday declared that the 16 floors from the top of the commercial building would be torn down after the Supreme Court ordered that the upper floors beyond the maximum allowable 60 feet height of the building would be demolished.
"Many a time I told the Rangs Bhaban owner that I had to waste a lot of time on the road every day because of his erecting the Bhaban at that strategic junction.
"Like me, all the commuters frequenting the roads in front of the Bhaban swore at its builder. The owner too acknowledged the predicaments of the city dwellers over the issue.
"But, for some reason or other, he never took steps to address the problem," said Nazrul Islam, also the chairman of the University Grants Commission.
"The Dhaka dwellers wasted thousands of work hours and fuel daily as they had to stall unendingly before the towering building.
"If the Bhaban was not there, reaching from the Mohakhali flyover to Farmgate driving would be a two or three minutes' drive. But as it is standing there formidably, the commuters have to spend 20 to 30 minutes.
"If Bijoy Sarani is taken straight up to Tejgaon, the traffic congestion at the Rangs Bhaban intersection would be easily resolved."
"If the government chose to build the planned link road by getting around the Bhaban there, it would have amounted to encouraging unauthorised builders and public property grabbers," Islam continued.
"Now it should serve as an example of punishment to the offender when the government builds the road straight through the site where Rangs Bhaban used to stand so brazenly for over a decade," Islam said.
"No-one will be encouraged to commit such expensive follies in future now."
Nazrul Islam, who heads Dhaka Transport Strategising Committee, continued, "Of course, there aren't exactly any other like this one, the Rangs Bhaban blocking a main city thoroughfare."
"Yes, the Baitul Mokarram mosque was built more than four decades back on a main avenue by the then East Pakistan government. Mirpur Road was also strangled and almost choked at a point when the Sobhanbagh Mosque was built. Well, as the structures happened to be mosques, everyone kept mum about them."
KM Maniruzzaman, former chairman of BUET's urban planning department, said, "The Bhaban is due to be dismantled because a road has to be built through its site. But before tearing down any structures for constructing roads, proper road networks should be planned and executed accordingly."
"All civilised nations do such things in a comprehensively planned manner," he said.
"Dhaka City has no such comprehensive development plan at the moment. The time of a short-term plan ended in 2005. Work on formulating another short-term plan is underway.
"But the pace of the activities undertaken seems so slow that I have every doubt if it will meet the needs of the times when it should be done and implemented."
"Everything should be executed according to well thought out plans in urban development. If we allow the city developed in an unplanned manner, it will be necessary again in the near future to go to the court and obtain orders for tearing down buildings, which should be wasteful," he said.
Asked if any more such buildings or installations posed any obstruction to Dhaka's communication, Zaman said, “Well, some huge and sprawling installations such as the Peelkhana housing the Bangladesh Rifles headquarters, Dhaka Cantonment, Dhaka University” etc occupy massive tracts of most valuable and centrally located metropolitan land."
"The roads built inside such premises are used in a restricted manner and hence doesn't help ease any pressure on the limited metropolitan road networks. Hence the continuous traffic holdups."
He said BGMEA Bhaban, Sonargaon Hotel with its extension and some more landmark structures had been built after filling up wetlands and lowlying drainage areas.
They asked government agencies to make sure no such colossal structures are erected unapproved in future.
Urban planner Nazrul Islam, engineer KM Maniruzzaman and environmentalist Naser Khan told bdnews24.com that the demolition decision was a well-timed and necessarily bold move.
The government Thursday declared that the 16 floors from the top of the commercial building would be torn down after the Supreme Court ordered that the upper floors beyond the maximum allowable 60 feet height of the building would be demolished.
"Many a time I told the Rangs Bhaban owner that I had to waste a lot of time on the road every day because of his erecting the Bhaban at that strategic junction.
"Like me, all the commuters frequenting the roads in front of the Bhaban swore at its builder. The owner too acknowledged the predicaments of the city dwellers over the issue.
"But, for some reason or other, he never took steps to address the problem," said Nazrul Islam, also the chairman of the University Grants Commission.
"The Dhaka dwellers wasted thousands of work hours and fuel daily as they had to stall unendingly before the towering building.
"If the Bhaban was not there, reaching from the Mohakhali flyover to Farmgate driving would be a two or three minutes' drive. But as it is standing there formidably, the commuters have to spend 20 to 30 minutes.
"If Bijoy Sarani is taken straight up to Tejgaon, the traffic congestion at the Rangs Bhaban intersection would be easily resolved."
"If the government chose to build the planned link road by getting around the Bhaban there, it would have amounted to encouraging unauthorised builders and public property grabbers," Islam continued.
"Now it should serve as an example of punishment to the offender when the government builds the road straight through the site where Rangs Bhaban used to stand so brazenly for over a decade," Islam said.
"No-one will be encouraged to commit such expensive follies in future now."
Nazrul Islam, who heads Dhaka Transport Strategising Committee, continued, "Of course, there aren't exactly any other like this one, the Rangs Bhaban blocking a main city thoroughfare."
"Yes, the Baitul Mokarram mosque was built more than four decades back on a main avenue by the then East Pakistan government. Mirpur Road was also strangled and almost choked at a point when the Sobhanbagh Mosque was built. Well, as the structures happened to be mosques, everyone kept mum about them."
KM Maniruzzaman, former chairman of BUET's urban planning department, said, "The Bhaban is due to be dismantled because a road has to be built through its site. But before tearing down any structures for constructing roads, proper road networks should be planned and executed accordingly."
"All civilised nations do such things in a comprehensively planned manner," he said.
"Dhaka City has no such comprehensive development plan at the moment. The time of a short-term plan ended in 2005. Work on formulating another short-term plan is underway.
"But the pace of the activities undertaken seems so slow that I have every doubt if it will meet the needs of the times when it should be done and implemented."
"Everything should be executed according to well thought out plans in urban development. If we allow the city developed in an unplanned manner, it will be necessary again in the near future to go to the court and obtain orders for tearing down buildings, which should be wasteful," he said.
Asked if any more such buildings or installations posed any obstruction to Dhaka's communication, Zaman said, “Well, some huge and sprawling installations such as the Peelkhana housing the Bangladesh Rifles headquarters, Dhaka Cantonment, Dhaka University” etc occupy massive tracts of most valuable and centrally located metropolitan land."
"The roads built inside such premises are used in a restricted manner and hence doesn't help ease any pressure on the limited metropolitan road networks. Hence the continuous traffic holdups."
He said BGMEA Bhaban, Sonargaon Hotel with its extension and some more landmark structures had been built after filling up wetlands and lowlying drainage areas.