Despite having a gigantic infrastructure, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) seems helpless to take any action against a number of landlords who have rented out their places to people for commercial usage instead to be used as houses. Hence an increase in the rents has led to a housing shortage in the capital. This mercenary trend has also given rise to mushrooming growth of brothel houses, which are being run under the garb of massage centres and can cause a security risk to the neighborhoods concerned. The illegal use of residential houses was not only increasing house shortage but also creating security problems since most of these housing units were being used as guesthouses and restaurants. Similarly the illegal car showrooms set up in the residential houses were also a cause of rising incidents of carjacking, CDA and police sources told this scribe. Sources said the carjackers would hire residential houses to be used as showroom.
“The senate standing committee has repeatedly told the Islamabad Capital Territory ICT administration and CDA to move against the owners of houses, which are being used as massage centres, brothels and bars. But both the departments have simply failed to take any action in this regard,” the CDA sources said. They said that involvement of influential people as well as CDA’s high-ups had been the main that the violation continued unabated. “Whenever the relevant CDA directorate issues notices to the violators, the CDA high-ups intervene to save them,” they added. They said the CDA’s oversight was to blame for the housing shortage, high rents and property prices in the capital.
“According to a survey of the authority, over 791 houses are being used for commercial purposes in the residential areas of the Islamabad. Out of these, 325 are being used as offices of various organisations, 87 as guesthouses, four as restaurants, 255 as schools and 124 as beauty parlours in various sectors of the capital and they all have been set up in complete violation of the CDA building byelaws,” the sources added. They said the Islamabad Residential Sectors Zoning Regulation held that there was a ban on non-conforming use of the residential houses in the capital and that the CDA could cancel the allotment of plots if the owner continued the violation.
