City will grow in circles: CDP

City will grow in circles: CDP
Deccan Herald

The City will grow around in circles over the next ten years, going by the draft of Master Plan 2015 (technically, the revised Comprehensive Development Plan — CDP). The Plan classifies the City’s areas into five major zones, all concentric belts, based on the current and planned land-use pattern.

These include the Old Urban Areas (comprising the ‘Petta’ areas of Chikpet, Cubbonpet, Cottonpet, and the traditional zone of Shivajinagar, Ashok Nagar, Ulsoor, Vasant Nagar and urban village settlements).

Next, there are the Urban Re-development Areas.

These consist of the MG Road Area Zone (MG Road, Brigade Road, Residency Road, Madras Bank Road and St Marks Road); Central Business District (CBD) zone (Mayo Hall, Magrath Road and Residency Road, Manipal Centre between MG Road and Ulsoor Road); the CBD Precinct (Shantala Nagar, Mac Iver Town), Richmond Town, Vasant Nagar, other urban settlements and new extensions); the Transformation/Development Zone (Basavangudi, Visveswarapuram, Chamarajpet, Malleswaram, GandhiNagar) and the Mutation Corridor Zone (the Radial Corridors and main Corridors, predominantly having a road based development).

Among Residential Area Zones are mixed residential areas (having housing, commerce, SSIs and artisan activities such as Kempapura Agrahara, Srirampuram, Devarajivanahalli, Munidreddy palya, Someshwar nagar, Tavarakere, Yeshwanthapur); mainly residential areas (with residential areas where commercial land-users are allowed along designated main roads and in a restricted manner). Commercial axes (major and minor roads where commercial activities can be allowed) will be in this zone too.

Industrial Activities Areas Zone comprise the Industrial zone, the High-tech zone and the logistics zone (areas reserved for handling goods exchanges, special warehousing, cargo terminals and transfer of cargo between different types of transport such as rail, road and air).

The outer-most belt of the City are the Green Areas. These may be protected land zones (sensitive sites such as tanks, lakes, valley beds, forests); restricted development zones (extending from the West to the South including the TGR catchment area to Bangalore’s North) and agricultural land zones (all remaining areas falling under villages).

Zonal restrictions

The CDP has recommended restrictions and regulations on any future construction activity in each of these zones. For instance, the minimum plot area for CBD is about 500 sq m, as against ‘Petta’ area or mixed residential area, where construction on plots above 54 sq m can be approved. Similarly, it calls for larger setbacks (open spaces in compound around buildings) in constructions in the Mutation Corridor zones — to as to facilitate widening of roads in future.

The CDP offers micro-level recommendations for development of each zone — for instance, establishment of ‘industrial clusters’ so that common infrastructural services (for instance, treatment plants) can be shared among several companies in industrial zone.