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Wanted - park/lung space in whitefield area
Written By silkboard - 26 May, 2010
Bangalore Whitefield environment Varthur Lake Parks suggestion Mahadevapura Living
Amidst the barrage of not to this and no to that posts, here is an "I need this" instead. Whitefield has seen relentless concretization in last 4-5 years. Nice roads, the best pavements, tech parks, and housing complexes. But life is not all about living, commuting and working. We need to play, mingle around and relax as well. For that, need some serious public space, or a large new park.
Center of the city has plenty of these, but it takes too much time to go to Cubbon Park or Lalbagh or Freedom Park now. Whitefield area has a few lakes, and new recreational amenities can be developed around a few of those. We know that a large park will not bring any white or black money to BBMP or BDA, and that is probably why concrete is the flavor of the decade in Bangalore. If you live around Whitefield, leave your comment with words of support, and we will figure how to take this request forward with local corporators or MLA or BBMP/BDA.
Possible locations? No idea on ownership of these parts yet, but here is the wild-wish aka I-am-smoking-pot list. I just went by the logic that anything around lakes that doesn't seem to be cultivated, or doesn't yet have construction activity happening on it may still be with some govt body. Also, remember that google maps may not have the latest imagery.
"Suspect" spots around lakes in central/south part of Whitefield sub urban area (red circles):
[gmap circle=12.967441848780064 , 77.70665985339292 + 0.07551707566787694 |circle=12.970617603543396 , 77.72268497930781 + 0.10515998988920276 |circle=12.972387121736753 , 77.73739796870359 + 0.11001895356965537 |circle=12.939794081402171 , 77.71375858770625 + 0.13784432800805918 |zoom=13 |center=12.957888202258282,77.72123336791992 |width=500px |height=400px |control=Small |type=Map]
Some more "suspect" spots, on the north side (red circles):
[gmap circle=12.995347895859169 , 77.75031495068106 + 0.27381213378084657 |circle=13.017342247701398 , 77.74104523632559 + 0.2840812947295231 |circle=12.979046879411818 , 77.73745161288389 + 0.08244213570616635 |zoom=13 |center=13.002383373560638,77.73942947387695 |width=500px |height=400px |control=Small |type=Map]
None of this is large enough. Wish we will get a huge park as part of the BDA layout that is being planned south of Varthur lake, somewhere, in or around the red circle below:
[gmap circle=12.93291891221902 , 77.71568012132775 + 0.7367843289087144 |zoom=12 |center=12.922754816987997,77.71711349487305 |width=500px |height=400px |control=Small |type=Map]
COMMENTS
idontspam - 26 May, 2010 - 03:17
We know that a large park will not bring any white or black money to BBMP or BDA, and that is probably why concrete is the flavor of the decade in Bangalore.
I think you have pointed out one of the root causes. If real estate is the only revenue earner for the city it will only look to increase it. Monetarily we should move to a federal model where state taxes are paid separately on income directly to the state, this will incentivise the govt to create jobs.
sanjayv - 26 May, 2010 - 04:19
Absolutely agree that we need a park in this part of town. This was something I was thinking of myself fairly recently. The only park that I know of and visit occasionally is in the Whitefield inner circle. It is a smallish park, but nice.
A key question is the size that one would want to talk about. How big should said park be? If you look around, there is plenty of open land (privately owned) which still do not have concrete around it. The other big problem here are these large gated developments and not enough interior roads. Another thing that BBMP/ BDA has been extremely remiss on, but that is the subject of another post.
My other demand for this area is a decent playground. Parks are nice, but where do kids play with a ball.? Again, these spaces are also fairly limited in this part of town. One in Whitefield inner circle and one shrinking one in AECS layout (in which BBMP keeps building new structures and shrinking the play area) are the two I am aware of.
The Mahadevapura Agenda Task Force (RK Mishra) minutes I saw from couple of years back had some of these listed. Would be interesting to know what is happening there.
Another tidbit of info is that BBMP has a "nursery" somewhere in Mahadevapura. Is there enough adjoining land to make the nursery into nursery cum park?
'Gated' Community parks & grounds are accessible to all, by law
ashwin - 26 May, 2010 - 06:36
The so called "gated" communities that prevent you from using their road or parks are doing so illegally. When a private layout is created (which is what they were called before they started putting walls around them), to get BDA approval, the have to set aside minimum percentages of land for Roads, Civic Amenity and Recreation sites. I don't remember off hand the percentages, I think it is between 15 - 25% for CA + Recreation.
These sites are then required to be handed over to the BDA. Later the developer gets permission from the BDA to plant/beautify the gardens etc. In the case of Civic Amenity sites, the builder has to actually buy back the site from the BDA if he wants to use it for a club house - this part I learnt because the builder for the community where I have a house went through the process, resulting in a delay to the clubhouse getting built. I actually saw a newspaper ad by the BDA advertising the auction of this and other CA sites.
The long and short of this is that there is no such thing, legally speaking, as a gated community within Bangalore Muncipal limits. And its not me who says it - the BBMP put out an ad, signed by the commisioner, explicity stating this a couple of years back (I might still have the cutting somewhere - if I find it I'll scan and uplod).
The reason the gates still stand is that no one has challenged it. So the next time you or your kids are denied access to a park or a playground and you feel strongly about it, my suggestion is that you do something - complain to the BBMP, file an RTI or even a PIL. It will take time, effort and follow up, but its the only way to take back our city.
how does one make such requests?
silkboard - 26 May, 2010 - 12:54
Sanjay, so now, how does an ordinary joe aka citizen like you or me make such requests? Its not really a complaint, so can't go through BBMP spandana. Who to write to for lodging a request of sorts?
A study by my fav IISc prof TVR
shekhar_mittal - 27 May, 2010 - 04:01
We know that a large park will not bring any white or black money to BBMP or BDA, and that is probably why concrete is the flavor of the decade in Bangalore.
May be true. But most of us fail to realise that even in pure economic terms a lake does have a value for people living around it and cities in general. Prof TV Ramachandran did a study on it. I am attaching it to SB's post above.
-Shekhar
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