NEW DELHI: Welcoming the high court’s decision on Signature View Apartments, residents said HC’s direction to DDA to pay rent as soon as the flats were vacated had come as a breather and raised their expectation for the beginning of the demolition-reconstruction work at the site on priority.
“We also argued from the beginning that it is impossible to get all flats vacated on a single day. Those who already left their flats for safety reasons were finding it hard to pay rents for the new accommodations and EMIs for their flats at Signature View,” RWA president Amarendra Rakesh said, referring to the three- month time granted by the court to vacate all flats.
Delhi Development Authority developed the project on 2.83 hectares, of which 2.16 hectares were utilised for 336 residential apartments while the rest was meant for a commercial complex. During reconstruction, DDA planned to build 168 more flats using this land and on the upper floors of residential towers, according to sources. Some residents moved the court opposing this plan.
Sanjiv Singh, a petitioner, said, “The addition of flats would have turned the area into a slum and snatched our right to free air and surroundings. On Monday, the court also asked DDA to extend the benefit of enhanced FAR to the flat owners. We only request the court to supervise the project rather than dispose of the matter.”
Residents also welcomed the court’s decision to pay a facilitation amount or rent at the rate of Rs 50,000 per month to the owners of HIG flats and Rs 38,000 per month for the MIG flats from the date when a flat is vacated and enhance the rate by 10% per annum. “In DDA’s guidelines for redeveloping the place, there was no mention of increasing the rent annually, which was disappointing. However, the rent fixed is not at par with market rates,” said Singh.
Thanking lieutenant governor VK Saxena for intervening in the matter, residents requested him to take the lead in accelerating the work.
The complex, constructed between 2007 and 2010, consists of 10 towers with a stilt+10-storey structure and two towers with a stilt+6-storey structure. The flats were allotted in 2011-12, but residents began expressing concerns about the structural safety within a few years.
They claimed that the construction-related issues emerged from 2012-13 itself, prompting them to approach the authority. DDA subsequently conducted a study through IIT-Delhi in 2021-22, which analysed 184 samples. The study recommended “vacating and dismantling” the buildings immediately. The condition of flats in some blocks was found more deplorable.
Based on the report, LG instructed DDA in Jan 2023 to “immediately vacate, dismantle and rebuild the towers”. However, the work could not start due to the court case.
Source Homevior.in
