Riverfront village, city on the hill

RIBANDAR: Residents of Ribandar are suffering from an identity crisis. They cannot point out with confidence whether Ribandar is a village, town or a part of Panaji city, and they blame this on the multiple planning zones demarcated for such a small area.
A footnote in The Goa (Regulation of Land Development and Building Construction) Act 2008 under table VII has left a giant loophole that has in turn left Ribandar residents fuming.
The footnote states: In case of (commercial zone) C1, C2, C3 and C4 residential use shall be permitted on upper floors and ground floor above stilts. Residents claim that builders are exploiting this by setting up commercial establishments on the Ribandar hill, although no infrastructure has been put in place to support these establishments.
Take ward 30 for instance. A one-km, densely populated area, it has the hill on one side and the riverfront on the other. It is divided into two zones-the Ribandar hill, near Bal Bharti school, is now a commercial zone (C1, C2, C3 and C4) while the locality below the hill is a residential zone (S1, S2 and S3).
The angry residents explain, "By definition under the Act, C1 is a 'central zone', C2 is a 'local zone', C3 is a 'rural central commercial zone' and C4 is a 'rural local commercial zone', while the residential zone just has regular settlement and urban settlement zones. Now, I can point out that the area near Azad Maidan is possibly a 'central commercial zone', so how can you call Ribandar 'rural' and 'central commercial zone' at the same time?" asks a member of the Ribandar Chimbel Rakhon Samiti which was formed three years ago and which filed a petition in the high court in 2009.
The member, who requested anonymity, said further, "There is blatant exploitation of Ribandar land and the zoning of Ribandar which is essentially a village that has been converted to a commercial zone by private builders with no proper infrastructure. This, in turn, takes up its share of water, electricity, and sewage disposal resources adversely affecting the residents who reside at the bottom of the hill. While there are three pockets around this area; when it comes to Ribandar it is a ground-plus-seven commercial building and few other buildings near Bal Bharti School that have taken advantage of the zoning."
Information procured by the Samiti under the RTI Act shows that the North Goa planning and development authority granted permission to construct multi-family dwelling units in the C-2 commercial zone on February 13, 2006. Former Corporation of City of Panaji (CCP) mayor Tony Rodrigues, during his tenure as mayor, got the zone of a property to be developed by him converted from C-2 commercial to C-1 commercial. This conversion was done by the NGPDA despite the fact that according to NGPDA records the area falls under the C-2 commercial zone as per the ODP of Panaji. While in a C-2 commercial zone one has to maintain a 150% FAR (permission to construct ground-plus-five floors), for a C-1 commercial zone the approval of FAR is greater than 200%, allowing a developer to construct ground-plus-eight floors with about 90 flats.
Another resident, Ajit Akadkar says, "The road leading to the now commercial zone on the Ribandar hill is very narrow and steep. It is frequented by students going to the primary school on the hill as well as by residents whose houses are situated on the slope. In addition, Ribandar has traffic bottlenecks near the church. The only amenity we are thankful to the CCP for is that they collect our garbage. But even in this regard, a kilometre away, near Sao Pedro, there is a mess of garbage. We are a village but yet live under city regulations."
He also wants wards 29 and 30 reverted to their previous single ward status with a single councillor.
Meanwhile, when it comes to the CCP's performance, the residents are in general happy with their councillor's work.
"The councillor pushed for and did good work around the church with regard to retaining walls that approach the cemetery and the wall of the cemetery. However, there is scope for improvement. A long-term issue here is that there is no adequate sewage disposal system and as almost all of Ribandar faces the riverfront sewage is dumped into the Mandovi river conveniently," says medical practitioner Fatima D'Sa.