BENGALURU: Good news is on the way for owners of properties along rajakaluves and lakes, who had been denied Occupancy Certificates (OCs) and Commencement Certificates (CCs) by the civic body, citing new rules for buffer zones. Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad issued an order to his officials to start issuing OCs and CCs to the 31,500 properties and 256 housing projects. The certificates will allow them to occupy their properties.
Property owners had led a tense couple of years, after the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had revised buffer zones for lakes and rajakaluves in May 2016. On March 5 this year, the Supreme Court set aside rules formed by the NGT on revised buffer zones for lakes and rajakaluves. In 2016, the NGT had increased the 30-metre buffer zone around lakes in Bengaluru to 75 metres, which would have impacted lakhs of houses in the city.
The BBMP had, in its petition to the apex court challenging the NGT’s order, said that it had not issued OCs and CCs to 31,500 buildings and 256 housing projects due to an increase in the buffer zone set by NGT. Officials had said that the affected property owners had taken building plan approvals many years ago, but had completed their projects after May 4, 2016, the date of the NGT order. Though these buildings were eligible for certificates, the NGT order had put their legality on hold.
The BBMP claims that it had approved building plans of all these properties before May 4, 2016, when the NGT order revised buffer zones. But after completion of the properties and projects, the BBMP had denied OCs and CCs to these properties, citing the NGT order to implement the revised buffer zone retrospectively.
However, BBMP had submitted to the apex court at the hearing in February, that going by the NGT’s order on buffer zones of rajakaluves and tertiary drains, all 19 lakh properties in the city would have to be demolished as they are built right in front of tertiary drains.