While this all sounds like a grand plan, regular city folks who have been trying to get their hands on a parcel of land may not be too excited that the government chose to use the land for government buildings rather than a residential area or housing scheme project. Well, BIL General Manager Mastry says based on the location, it is not fit for a residential area.
Christy Mastry- General Manger, BIL
"There are two different types of housing. There is where a government decides to parcel out land and just gives pieces of land, that does not mean you are going to end up with a residential area that is sustainable. And you cannot be putting housing if you are not building quality housing in some of the most vulnerable places in the city. Housing is a very delicate matter because the expectations you give when you give a piece of land is that land is high, that land is filled, that land is safe. It is not fair necessarily to dole out pieces of land if the entity that has to build on that land doesn't have the resources to make that land safe and secure. So, I believe that there are housing schemes that we should be looking at throughout the city. And I believe that there are a lot of areas that we can revisit and make the housing in those areas much more resilient. But the parcel sizes that we are looking at and the scale of the roads and the network of road connections through there, that link from western to northern and the fast traffic there, it is not ideal for housing. It will be like if we built residential housing on both sides of Northern Highway. And lessons learned, urban planning is absolutely critical. If you don't get it right from the planning when you have the land on the ground, the expectations for the people who live on it become disappointed later on."
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