Commercial properties: Need-based amendments to building bylaws in Chandigarh sought

Chandigarh, September 3

The Chandigarh Beopar Mandal (CBM) has demanded need-based amendments to building bylaws related to commercial properties in the city.

Charanjiv Singh, president, CBM, said they had forwarded a comprehensive memorandum to UT Adviser Dharam Pal seeking need-based rationalisation of Building Byelaws at the earliest.

They demanded that commercial and industrial properties should be converted from leasehold to freehold after taking reasonable charges. All new auctions of commercial properties should be held on a freehold basis, which had hitherto remained unsold in spite of best efforts of the Estate Office, Chandigarh Housing Board and the Municipal Corporation.

They demanded that the Apartment Act should be implemented in the city both for commercial and residential properties to give relief to small and medium traders so that they could buy a portion of the building as per their requirement.

Permission of general trade should be permitted on the upper floors of all commercial buildings without any conversion charges, he said.

He said the construction of first floor on single storeyed booths and bay shops should be permitted for storage purpose to support small businesses. Penalty for violation/misuse should be rolled back to original Rs10 per sq ft per month from hefty manifold increase done in 2007, they demanded.

Transfer of allotted leasehold property should be done without charging one third of unearned profit, he said, demanding that conversion charges from SCF to SCO, which had been increased from Rs5 lakh to Rs60 lakh on V-4 road sector markets, should be rationalised.

Box-type construction of SCO and SCF in first phase sectors should be permitted on the pattern of second and third phase sectors, they demanded. — TNS