REHAB calls for revoking 'discriminatory' and 'flawed' DAP

Terming the latest Detailed Area Plan (DAP) 2022-2035 'discriminatory' and 'flawed', the country's realtors on Wednesday urged the interim government to revoke it and implement the previous DAP 2010.
The Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh (REHAB) also said the house building sector, which has been suffering from multifarious challenges in the recent times, could hardly undertake new projects in the last two years following the latest DAP taking effect.
They made the appeal at a press conference held at the auditorium of Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) on the Dhaka's Topkhana road.
REHAB President Md Wahiduzzaman, its senior vice-president Liakat Ali Bhuiyan, Vice-Presidents Abdul Latif and Abdur Razzaque, and director Labib Billah spoke on the occasion among others.
Mr Wahiduzzaman said, "The real estate sector embarked on the biggest crisis when the DAP 2022 was implemented", adding that the sector has been contributing to the country's economy through ups and downs for decades.
"With the aim of making Dhaka an inhabitable and environment-friendly city, the previous caretaker government with the consultation of the stakeholders, including experts, issued the Dhaka Imarat Nirman Bidhimala (Building Construction Rules)-2008", he said.
A comprehensive and well accepted Master Plan (city/town development plan) was introduced in 2010 afterwards, Mr Wahiduzzaman added.
"But the Master Plan-2010 was cancelled in an unjustified manner having ignored the Building Construction Rules, which were meant to develop Dhaka beautifully in a time befitting manner," he said.
"Due process was not followed to implement the DAP 2022, while a vested quarter backed by the then tyrannical government was looking to capture the real estate sector", the REHAB president alleged.
"During the Covid-19 pandemic, the vested quarter hastily released the discriminatory and flawed DAP 2022-2035 on August 2022 holding ceremonial public hearing ignoring public opinions," he said.
Some changes were made to the latest DAP, but they were not enough to address the crisis of the sector, he said, adding that one developer gets 40 per cent lower floor area as per the latest DAP compared to the previous one.
Responding to queries, Mr Abdul Latif said there was a provision to widen the narrow roads to at least eight feet, which was ignored in the DAP 2022.
"Considering the land scarcity of Bangladesh, there should be measures for encouraging vertical expansion and saving land and water bodies," he said.
Mr Abdur Razzaque said small plot owners were the worst sufferers of the latest DAP as the number of units and floor area of project dwindled to around a half of what they could previously avail.
Indicating the tough time for the real estate companies, he said: "Some companies now run with only 50 employees which had been over five hundred earlier."

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