A seminar meant to celebrate Ahmedabad’s UNESCO World Heritage City status turned into something else entirely. Homeowners arrived with questions. Officials arrived with assurances. The two sides spent much of the afternoon talking past each other.
The seminar on heritage management, held on Thursday, was the first consultation of its kind organised by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation and the Ahmedabad World Heritage City Trust. It comes ahead of an expected visit by UNESCO representatives later this month, part of the organisation’s mandate to review sites granted the heritage tag. The historic Walled City of Ahmedabad was officially inscribed as India’s first UNESCO World Heritage City on July 9, 2017.
Wanted: definite timeline
The trouble reportedly began after a panel discussion on Built Heritage Conservation. Several attendees, including owners of residences listed as heritage homes, demanded a definite timeline from the AMC for approving conservation plans. One homeowner said he was renovating up to five houses in the old city and wanted clarity on when approvals would come.
Assistant Municipal Commissioner Prayag Langalia sought to calm the room. According to reports, he said the civic body would expedite the process and noted that around 73 plans had been approved over the past six months. He urged homeowners to discuss specific cases privately.
The suggestion did not go down well. Several attendees said files had been pending before the Municipal Commissioner for months without being signed. They said they had every right to raise the issue at the seminar. Municipal Commissioner Banchha Nidhi Pani, who had delivered the opening address, had left the venue shortly after due to another engagement and was not present during the exchange.
A moment of comic relief broke the tension. Langalia, moments after saying that solutions could not be reached as long as stakeholders remained divided between the AMC and homeowners, referred to the issues as “your problems.” An attendee corrected him, saying “our problems.”
Urgent concern
Homeowners also took issue with the choice of venue. The seminar was held at Riverfront House on the western bank of the Sabarmati. Attendees argued that most heritage homes are located in the Walled City and that the consultation should have been held there, where more heritage homeowners could attend.
Beneath the frustration over process lay a more urgent concern. Homeowners said they were less worried about the money owed to them under the Tradable Development Rights scheme and simply wanted permission to proceed so that the structures could be conserved.
Tradable Development Rights refer to unused construction rights or floor space that a landowner can sell to developers in designated areas. These rights are granted as an incentive for owners of heritage structures or for building units within a notified heritage precinct. The benefits are determined according to the heritage value classification of the structure under the heritage conservation plan and are based on the utilised Floor Space Index, irrespective of the building unit’s area.
Of the 2,698 listed heritage structures in Ahmedabad, 2,249 are residential and 449 are institutional, the latter including national monuments.
Swearing by data
Deputy Municipal Commissioner Ramya Bhatt pushed back on the claim of delays. She told a section of the media that approvals had in fact increased over the past year. She said 134 properties had received Heritage Tradable Development Rights certificates since the scheme was implemented, and that TDR worth Rs 72 crore had been approved for approximately 16,000 square metres.
Bhatt also said a new committee, chaired by the Municipal Commissioner, had been constituted in the last year to study proposals and grant approvals. She added that some of those raising issues at the seminar were RTI activists and not heritage homeowners, and that they were referring to problems from about a year ago.
On the question of timelines, Bhatt reportedly said proposals that comply with conservation rules are processed quickly. She said that when someone claims to own a heritage house, they must submit a plan in accordance with heritage regulations.
If the proposal complies with conservation rules and traditional methods, approval is granted within a month. But if someone submits a proposal to build a Reinforced Cement Concrete structure, approval will not be granted even after five years.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the AMC said a dedicated Expert Subcommittee for Heritage Approvals, called ESHA, has been constituted under the Heritage Conservation Committee to expedite technical scrutiny of repair, restoration and development proposals for notified heritage properties.
The civic body also said a digital application system has been introduced for restoration permissions for listed heritage buildings to improve transparency, efficiency and monitoring. The AMC’s heritage department has additionally been strengthened with conservation architects, engineers and technical personnel to speed up approvals and documentation.
Also Read: INS Surat Marks A New Chapter For The City’s Nautical Heritage https://www.vibesofindia.com/ins-surat-marks-a-new-chapter-for-the-citys-nautical-heritage/
