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Lahore Development Authority
Good reading.....Your views on this ?
Why Lahorites prefer sprawled housing to apartments?
By Mian Muhammad Nadeem
June 10, 2011
The residents of Lahore have seen the city limits extend on a regular basis and purely agricultural land devoured by unhampered development. The transformation is still on and there is no let up in sight.
Beside other things, this trend can be attributed to the living patterns of the locals. They yearn to own a house built on their own piece of land and do not settle for anything less than that. Similar are the considerations for those opting to live on rent.
The real estate developers have jumped in and tried to fulfill the demand for housing through sprawled development. They have opted for setting up housing societies on citys peripheries and not availed the option of vertical development in the form of high-rise residential buildings
.
Disturbed by the constant loss of open spaces to this form of development, several stakeholders have urged the need to promote vertical development and identify and solve the problems related to this.
Muhammad Asim, a corporate sector employee who has lived both in Lahore and Karachi, has a lot to say on this issue. He tells weekly PULSE his experience of living in a flat in Karachi has been quite pleasant, but he cannot afford to do that in Lahore for more than one reason.
First of all, Asim thinks the warm weather of Lahore discourages one from living on upper floors. Exposed to sunlight, he says, the apartments or flats on these floors become hot like ovens. It even becomes difficult to live on second floor of your house.
Karachi on the other hand has much pleasant weather throughout the year and strong breeze keeps on blowing without fail. The temperature, he says, hardly touches 40 Celsius mark.
Asim adds that the breeze provides ventilation to flats in high-rise buildings and thats why those on western side carry a higher price tag.
Secondly, he believes those migrating to Karachi for economic reasons are much larger in number than those coming to Lahore. Their prior concern, he says, is to get hold of low-cost housing which is available to them in the form of flats. This trend has led to the acceptance of collective housing in Karachi over the years whereas the concept has not attracted Lahorites on the whole.
Renowned architect Nayyar Ali Dada thinks the change is taking place gradually and hopes flats will become popular over the time. He says housing preferences have a lot to do with the social attitudes of the people and their history. Flats are popular in Karachi as the city has affinity to Mumbai and a large number of migrants came from there after Partition, he says.
Dada tells weekly PULSE that there is no option left but to go for vertical development to keep the cost of living affordable. This, he says, is for the reason that the price of land is increasing at an alarming rate, making sprawled development a totally non-viable proposition.
Dada says he has seen people moving from houses to flats in Lahore. He recalls he was part of the project to build low-cost flats under Prime Ministers scheme. The construction was carried out next to Sheikh Zayed palace on Raiwind Road and the flats sold like hot cakes. Despite high demand for them, the price range remained between Rs 7 lakh and Rs 11 lakh, he added.
He says the affluent ones are buying luxury apartments and penthouses in multi-storey buildings. For example, he says, apartments in The Mall of Lahore are selling for as high as Rs25 million per unit.
Omar Bhatti, a faculty member at a private university in Lahore, tells weekly PULSE he is living in a flat with friends on the fourth floor of a commercial building. Hailing from Sahiwal, he has no problem with this type of housing as very few of his relatives know about this.
Had they been in this city they would have made my life miserable. God knows why living in a flat is a taboo in our society.
Bhatti says the biggest blessing for him is that no beggar, street vendor or door-to-door marketing person can disturb him at his will. The security guards at the ground floor first ask about visitors identity and then allow them to go upstairs, he says. Secondly, he says, a body elected by residents of the flats takes care of the problems faced by them.
All the residents make a small contribution to the kitty to cover the cost of services provided by the body.
Bhatti says the case may be different at other places, but the building where he lives even has a standby generator to operate the elevator. When theres load-shedding, the elevator is operated to facilitate the patients and the elderly, he adds.
Ahmed Rafay Alam, an environmental lawyer with interest in urban development, says the perception that Lahorites have always liked sprawled development is not fully correct. His point is that the Muslims living in the country before the arrival of the British used to build multi-storey houses.
A visitor to the Walled City can find a large number of four to six storey buildings there, constructed in the pre-partition days, he adds. He says there used to be common courtyards for multiple households which would also help the hot air rise in the air and the cold one to take its place.
Rafay tells weekly PULSE it were the British who promoted the concept of building houses with verandahs, big gardens, rooms with high roofs and windows to look out from the comfort of the sitting rooms. The Lahorites erroneously own this style of living which in fact was never theirs.
He says the biggest reason for failure of collective housing in Lahore is that they are very badly maintained. What happens is that the developer gets out of the picture after selling them and theres nobody to look after them. Secondly, he says the builders try to sell every inch of land and do not leave enough space for corridors, ventilation, lighting etc.
In this situation, he says, individuals may live in apartments, but would never want their families to join them.
Rafay says an interesting experiment has been done by a developer in an area close to Sherpao Bridge on Jail Road. He says the developer there has constructed four-storey apartments and allowed very selective tenants to occupy them. The developer, he adds, also ensured that all the tenants come from somewhat similar social and economic backgrounds so that they can gel with each other easily.
The occupants of these apartments are quite content with their lifestyle and have joint facilities for social activities, sports etc. Such experiments, he thinks, will go a long way in changing the living habits of the locals.
Pakistan Today
Lahore Development Authority
Good reading.....Your views on this ?
Why Lahorites prefer sprawled housing to apartments?
By Mian Muhammad Nadeem
June 10, 2011
The residents of Lahore have seen the city limits extend on a regular basis and purely agricultural land devoured by unhampered development. The transformation is still on and there is no let up in sight.
Beside other things, this trend can be attributed to the living patterns of the locals. They yearn to own a house built on their own piece of land and do not settle for anything less than that. Similar are the considerations for those opting to live on rent.
The real estate developers have jumped in and tried to fulfill the demand for housing through sprawled development. They have opted for setting up housing societies on citys peripheries and not availed the option of vertical development in the form of high-rise residential buildings
.
Disturbed by the constant loss of open spaces to this form of development, several stakeholders have urged the need to promote vertical development and identify and solve the problems related to this.
Muhammad Asim, a corporate sector employee who has lived both in Lahore and Karachi, has a lot to say on this issue. He tells weekly PULSE his experience of living in a flat in Karachi has been quite pleasant, but he cannot afford to do that in Lahore for more than one reason.
First of all, Asim thinks the warm weather of Lahore discourages one from living on upper floors. Exposed to sunlight, he says, the apartments or flats on these floors become hot like ovens. It even becomes difficult to live on second floor of your house.
Karachi on the other hand has much pleasant weather throughout the year and strong breeze keeps on blowing without fail. The temperature, he says, hardly touches 40 Celsius mark.
Asim adds that the breeze provides ventilation to flats in high-rise buildings and thats why those on western side carry a higher price tag.
Secondly, he believes those migrating to Karachi for economic reasons are much larger in number than those coming to Lahore. Their prior concern, he says, is to get hold of low-cost housing which is available to them in the form of flats. This trend has led to the acceptance of collective housing in Karachi over the years whereas the concept has not attracted Lahorites on the whole.
Renowned architect Nayyar Ali Dada thinks the change is taking place gradually and hopes flats will become popular over the time. He says housing preferences have a lot to do with the social attitudes of the people and their history. Flats are popular in Karachi as the city has affinity to Mumbai and a large number of migrants came from there after Partition, he says.
Dada tells weekly PULSE that there is no option left but to go for vertical development to keep the cost of living affordable. This, he says, is for the reason that the price of land is increasing at an alarming rate, making sprawled development a totally non-viable proposition.
Dada says he has seen people moving from houses to flats in Lahore. He recalls he was part of the project to build low-cost flats under Prime Ministers scheme. The construction was carried out next to Sheikh Zayed palace on Raiwind Road and the flats sold like hot cakes. Despite high demand for them, the price range remained between Rs 7 lakh and Rs 11 lakh, he added.
He says the affluent ones are buying luxury apartments and penthouses in multi-storey buildings. For example, he says, apartments in The Mall of Lahore are selling for as high as Rs25 million per unit.
Omar Bhatti, a faculty member at a private university in Lahore, tells weekly PULSE he is living in a flat with friends on the fourth floor of a commercial building. Hailing from Sahiwal, he has no problem with this type of housing as very few of his relatives know about this.
Had they been in this city they would have made my life miserable. God knows why living in a flat is a taboo in our society.
Bhatti says the biggest blessing for him is that no beggar, street vendor or door-to-door marketing person can disturb him at his will. The security guards at the ground floor first ask about visitors identity and then allow them to go upstairs, he says. Secondly, he says, a body elected by residents of the flats takes care of the problems faced by them.
All the residents make a small contribution to the kitty to cover the cost of services provided by the body.
Bhatti says the case may be different at other places, but the building where he lives even has a standby generator to operate the elevator. When theres load-shedding, the elevator is operated to facilitate the patients and the elderly, he adds.
Ahmed Rafay Alam, an environmental lawyer with interest in urban development, says the perception that Lahorites have always liked sprawled development is not fully correct. His point is that the Muslims living in the country before the arrival of the British used to build multi-storey houses.
A visitor to the Walled City can find a large number of four to six storey buildings there, constructed in the pre-partition days, he adds. He says there used to be common courtyards for multiple households which would also help the hot air rise in the air and the cold one to take its place.
Rafay tells weekly PULSE it were the British who promoted the concept of building houses with verandahs, big gardens, rooms with high roofs and windows to look out from the comfort of the sitting rooms. The Lahorites erroneously own this style of living which in fact was never theirs.
He says the biggest reason for failure of collective housing in Lahore is that they are very badly maintained. What happens is that the developer gets out of the picture after selling them and theres nobody to look after them. Secondly, he says the builders try to sell every inch of land and do not leave enough space for corridors, ventilation, lighting etc.
In this situation, he says, individuals may live in apartments, but would never want their families to join them.
Rafay says an interesting experiment has been done by a developer in an area close to Sherpao Bridge on Jail Road. He says the developer there has constructed four-storey apartments and allowed very selective tenants to occupy them. The developer, he adds, also ensured that all the tenants come from somewhat similar social and economic backgrounds so that they can gel with each other easily.
The occupants of these apartments are quite content with their lifestyle and have joint facilities for social activities, sports etc. Such experiments, he thinks, will go a long way in changing the living habits of the locals.
Pakistan Today
