Violations in buildings led to traffic chaos

CHENNAI: Traffic chaos and the lack of space for pedestrians in the busy Ranganathan Street could be blamed on the six illegal buildings in T Nagar, that were locked and sealed by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) last month.These six buildings have been constructed without the parking space that they are supposed to have as per Development Control Rules. This left the pedestrians with no space to walk on the street.  Sources told City Express that the six buildings – Rathna stores, The Chennai Silks, Sri Kumaran Gold House, Jayachandran Textiles, P R Rathinam (Rathna Stores) and SAT Complex, never followed the Development Control Rules (DCR) and had nearly 100 per cent violations.The SAT Complex should have had slots for 21 cars as per requirement of DCR, but in reality, it hardly had any. Similarly, Rathna Stores should have had a parking lot for 52 cars, but no space had been allocated for the purpose. The worst violators of the lot are Chennai Silks, who should have provided parking space for 99 cars as mentioned in the plan. “As per the DCR norms, it should have parking slots for 99 cars. Now, if the 99 cars don’t have parking space, this will automatically create parking woes as well as chaos in the area during the festival season,” a CMDA source reasoned. Similarly, Sri Kumaran Gold House never built a parking lot for 76 cars as required by the DCR. Same was the case with Jayachandran Textiles and Rathna Stores, who have deviated from the original plans.The buildings had also violated other Development Control Rules, including floor space index  (FSI) besides front, side and rear setbacks. They also did not have a no-objection certificate from the Fire Service Department, sources said.Another major violation is the Floor Space Index. All the shops should have an FSI of 1.50 as per the DCR norms, while none of the six buildings followed the rules. CMDA sources said that the buildings had double the FSI prescribed under the DCR norms, while some had nearly three to four times the required FSI.Rathna Stores’ FSI exceeded by 6.50 than what was prescribed by the DCR norms and Chennai Silks by 6.48 FSI and Sri Kumaran Gold House by 6.81FSI.