Reserved sites encroached upon

The layout approval plan 208/87 and 347/87 identify three sites in Kutralam Nagar in Kuniamuthur as reserved sites.

One is supposed to be a park, the second a shop site and the third children’s play area.

But all the three are now under illegal occupation, alleges the area resident Srinath Balasundaram.

Houses

On all the three plots, there are houses as the layout developer has sold those.

In the layout approval 347/87 the first site is supposed to be a shop site and the one next to it the park site. But both the sites are encroached by house, he says pointing out to the plan document.

Likewise, in 208/87 the site earmarked as children’s play area has two houses.

He says he wrote to the Coimbatore Corporation Commissioner in September 2015 complaining about the encroachment and as there was no action, he reminded the officer in February this year.

The layout promoter R. Ramasamy, whose daughter lives on one of the reserved site, says that though the plan approval document may show them as reserved sites, they were not.

The extent of the area in the approval plan 347 and 208 were 50 cents each.

The reserved sites were supposed to measure five cents each. To compensate the loss of reserved sites in the two layouts, he had earmarked 15 cents in another layout in the neighbourhood with the plan approval number 395/86.

He had also handed over the 15 cents to the then local body, the Kuniamuthur Town Panchayat, Mr. Ramasamy said.

He also said that the persons raking up the issue were doing so to settle scores.

S. Giridharan, who has house on the reserved sites, says he bought the land with the house only after taking a legal opinion and is of the considered view that there is no illegality.

The reserved site for the area is in the neighbourhood.

Tamil Nadu Reserve Site Protection Committee Organiser S.P. Thiyagarajan says that what the promoter has done is patently illegal because the reserved site shown in a plan approval has to be handed over to the local body and no construction activity should take place there.

Court orders

Citing various court rulings, he says that a site shown in a layout plan cannot be altered or shifted to another layout.

Even the approving agency, the Directorate of Town and Country Planning, does not have the power to make changes in an approved paln.

Coimbatore Corporation officials say that they will look into the complaint and take action at the earliest.

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