Activists feel intent of some of proposals was to undermine Regional Plan 2021
PANAJI
A convergence of some 100-odd social activists, architects, green activists among others some from well known civil society groups deliberated in minute detail the big ticket changes proposed in the Town and Country Planning Act in the capital city on Monday evening.
Each of the 16 amendments proposed in the TCP Act which were recently published to seek objections and suggestions from the public and stakeholders were examined in minute technical detail and many felt the intent of some of the proposals was to duck and undermine the Regional Plan 2021.
The proposal to grant additional FARs to hospitals, educational institutions and hotels, for instance or the ones which intend to permit golf courses, film cities and farmhouses in hitherto green zones, came in for sharp criticism from multiple participants.
At the meeting, it was resolved to submit a detailed memorandum of objections and suggestions to each of the 16 proposed amendments.
No group has claimed onus for organising the meeting which was held at the Piedade Institute's hall in the city but several well known personalities from a rainbow of civil society organisations were present.
Some of the prominent participants included Goa Bachao Abhiyan's (GBA) Dr Sabina Martins and architect Rebboni Saha, Architect Arminio Ribeiro of the Charles Correa Foundation, Anthony D'Silva of the movement against the construction in the Old Goa Heritage Zone, Dr Claude Alvares, Dr Nandini Velho of the Save Mollem movement, green activist Roshan Luke Mathias among others.
The nearly two-hour-long deliberations flagged the proposed Central Business District without locations being known, FAR and other concessions for educational institutes or yoga centres as a blatant effort to bypass RP-2021.
The meeting also resolved to spread awareness about the proposed amendments to the TCP Act and the need to object to them by people from across the State.
Chief Town Planner (Administration) James Mathew, had issued the draft notification last week detailing the proposed changes and had sought objections and suggestions from stakeholders and general public within 30 days.
The objections and suggestions to the draft amended regulations have to be submitted to the Chief Town Planner's office at the TCP department's headquarters in the capital city.
As announced by TCP Minister Vishwajit Rane earlier, the proposed amendments mentioned in Mathew's notification permit golf courses and film cities, as a matter of policy, on chunks of 4-lakh square meters and more of land hitherto zoned 'green' but not in eco-sensitive zone 1, khazans, paddy fields, tenanted agricultural land and forests.
Residential schools, yoga meditation centres and open sports complexes to be permitted to be built in all land zones, except paddy fields, khazan lands, water bodies, forest and flood-prone areas was another change the proposed amendments seek to effect.
The last time such sweeping changes were proposed by the State government to land-use zoning and development patterns through a Regional Plan back in 2005-06 had to be aborted after resistance sown by civil society groups swelled into a statewide movement spearheaded by the GBA.
