URBAN PLANNING

Tuesday September 14th was Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) day in Bangalore. Drawn into severe scrutiny by citizens protesting the TDR scheme's use as compensation for roadwidening, the state government's Urban Development Department organised a workshop on the controversial scheme. Following that, in the evening Samaya TV, a Kannada 24x7 news channel, organised a live debate on the topic. (See inset box for a brief report on the debate). As was the concern of many citizen action groups, the government's day-long workshop turned out to be a mostly technical session on TDR's implementation. Bureaucrats from Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat…

I went for a short walk just now...and here are the things I did....I went across to the "Samatha" cobbler's booth across the road, and found that after 6 days, the cobbler was still absent, and the booth closed. After the closure of the booth where my "regular" lady cobbler used to repair my footwear and handbags...this man was my "regular" guy. Strangely, no other vendor in the area knows where he has gone, or what has happened to him...he's a hard-working guy (though sometimes the smell of liquor wafts across!) and does good work, so I  hope he's just…

“Where were you all, madam, at that time?” asked a BBMP official dealing with the city’s infrastructure development, last week. This was not  some rhetorical cross-examination of an accused during a crime investigation (though, as you will presently see, there is an element of crime involved) but something more basic that many of us can be asked or should ask ourselves more often.Residents of a Scientists’ Colony is south Bengaluru  suddenly woke up one recent morning to find that some of their houses, inside the colony had been marked for “road widening”. The road running through the colony was perfectly…

When is a footpath not a footpath?When it's a death-trap....There is simply no reason why we should have such awful pavements; it's just sheer negligence and an attitude of "don't care".This was taken in J P Nagar 3rd Phase, close to the Ramana Maharishi Academy for the Blind. If we have such difficulty negotiating our roads and pavements....imagine what it must be like for those without vision.⊕

The first trains on the Metro are about to run in the next six to nine months, so this is a good time to ensure that a few other steps are taken to make the new infrastructure more effective. This is particularly because the world over, Metro systems are usually not financially viable, and this has to be overcome by some tie-in arrangement in the real estate market, through capital grants from government and through other control measures that benefit the transit system.Bangalore Metro is no different. Over the course of a decade and more, the state has been willing…

The BBMP has been promoting its own engineers to higher positions in the town planning department, violating a government order that says all town planning posts in the city have to be filled by qualified officials from the state government's Department of Town and Country Planning (DTCP). The state government's Department of Town and Country Planning controls appointments to BBMP town planning functions. Pic: Vaishnavi Vittal. Take the case of Ravindranath, Joint Director of Town Planning at the BBMP. As per a state government order, Ravindranath has been transferred to the town planning department in Magadi (under the jurisdiction of…

The German botanist Gustav Hermann Krumbiegel is a part and parcel of Bangalore history....Now, Max Mueller Bhavan is hosting an exhibition about him:G.H. Krumbiegel: "Whatever he touched he adorned"A multimedia show curated by Suresh Jayaram17 - 30.04.20109.00 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. (Closed on Sundays)Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller BhavanInauguration on 16.04.2010, 6.30 p.mMore details here ⊕

"The National Seminar on Urban Growth of Bangalore with special reference to Bangalore Cantonment (1809-2009)" was held at Christ University from February 18th to 20th. This seminar was organised by the department of History, Christ University, Bangalore along with the Indian Council for Historic Research (ICHR), New Delhi. There was also a photography exhibition that featured numerous archival photographs of buildings of Cantonment. Swati Ramanathan. Pic: Mathew Prasad Idiculla. Swati Ramanathan, co-founder of Janaagraha, in her inaugural speech spoke of the how effective urban planning and urban governance can work together to provide a better city administration system. She also…

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has wrongly sanctioned a plan for a commercial building in Panduranganagar, located off Bannerghatta Road near the Indian Institute of Management, in violation of zoning rules in the city's Revised Master Plan (RMP) 2015.The building under-construction, a convention centre at Site No. 223 in the layout is on a plot size measuring 400 sq metres. Whereas, a minimum of 2000 sq metres is required for building a convention centre, as per the BDA's RMP, which has not been followed by the BBMP's Town Planning department in Bommanahalli zone. The plan sanction for this convention…

Dear Shri Mohsin avare,This is regarding the Draft of the Bangalore Metropolitan Land Transport Authority Act. I am writing to you on behalf of the Hasiru Usiru network.We would like to commend the DULT for moving to create a unified transport authority. The creation of such an authority is a real need right now. We would also like to commend you for pro-actively arranging a public consultation to discuss the same.To ensure that the act is people friendly and so that people get a genuine chance to shape this act, we would like to request you to -1)Grant more time…