The Indian Express               21.06.2013

City MC de-seals buildings, directs owners to create parking space

An MC official opens the sealed gate of Hotel Park Plaza on Thursday

After about five weeks, the Municipal Corporation's Town Planning Department on Thursday de-sealed the basements of Park Plaza, KP building and Olivia complex and asked the owners to form proper parking areas as per the submitted plan as soon as possible.

These buildings had been sealed on May 10 because the owners had been using the parking area meant for commercial purposes. After the May 29 Punjab and Haryana High Court orders, the owners through their counsel Harpreet Sandhu had submitted a proposal of proposed parking area with municipal corporation to which the authorities considered and after making due inspections they opened the seals on Wednesday evening. The orders were given in name of advocate Sandhu.

Park plaza authorities had declared 10,400 square feet of area of basement as parking space in 1992. The present parking area, however, exceeds what was declared in 1992 and hence it was de-sealed. In KP building, the parking space of 780 square feet was mentioned in plan submitted in 1997, which was allegedly being used for commercial purposes. The present proposal again has more area than what was mentioned in year 1997, say the order issued by ATP Rajinder Sharma.

In Olivia Complex, 1,23,950 square feet was the proposal of parking submitted in 2006. The order reads: "Floor area ratio(FAR) of the building is in excess of permissible limit FAR and hence parking must be created as per building bylaws,"