CHENNAI: The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) plans to develop 15 acres of Open Space Reservation (OSR) land in Kilambakkam bus stand and 21 acres of OSR land in Porur as large public spaces with parks and playgrounds at Rs 30 crore.
The projects would be taken up as a pilot with the help of the department of tourism and the department of environment, climate change and forest. Official sources said CMDA is awaiting consent from the government to proceed. CMDA has been planning a sponge park, an artificial wetland structure constructed to collect, filter and store the runoff on a pilot basis in Kilambakkam. The plan is to have the sponge park near the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) ‘Megalithic burial site.’
Similarly, in Porur, it is proposed to have a sports complex and a park in the land gifted by Sri Ramachandra Educational and Health Trust. CMDA has been accorded permission on the condition that the land shall be handed back to Chennai Corporation.
The development regulations of the second Master plan stipulate that in sites with an extent of 10,000 sq m or more, 10% of the area excluding roads shall be reserved as Open Space Reservation (OSR) and transferred to the authority or the local body designated.
Since the Second Master Plan in Chennai, 133,55,53,111 sq m of land has been marked as OSR as per figures available till 2015. These OSR lands are maintained as parks by the local body. CMDA while sanctioning the planning proposal takes over these reserved sites and hands them over to local bodies for the development and maintenance of parks and playfields.