BDA asks malls, hospitals and commercial buildings not to collect parking fees

Sambad English Bureau Published On : Oct 16, 2019 at 9:35 PM

Bhubaneswar: Taking note of the instances of parking fee collection at commercial buildings, shopping malls, multiplexes, hospitals, apartments and housing projects in Odisha’s capital city, the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) today asked the property developers to stop collecting parking fees from visitors on the premises immediately while terming the practice as ‘illegal’.

“It has come to the notice of the BDA that different shopping malls, multiplexes and apartments are imposing parking charges/fees. This is not consistent with the provisions of the BDA (P&BS) regulations as well as the approved building plan and the developers/owners are hereby directed to stop the illegal practice of charging parking fees from the visitors, immediately,” the BDA stated in a release.

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The BDA further said the parking area shown in the approved building plan is being used for purposes other than parking vehicles on some such buildings. Such misuse of parking is resulting in on-street parking and thereby adversely affecting the traffic movement on the public road.

Worth mentioning, the BDA (Planning & Building Standards) Regulations, 2018 prescribes that mandatory off-street parking shall be provided in commercial buildings. The sub-regulation (7) of regulation 37 of the aforesaid regulations prescribes that the misuse of the parking spaces shall be summarily removed or demolished by the BDA.

The BDA also asked the property developers and owners to abide by the mandatory off-street parking provisions in the approved building plan. “Any deviations in the parking provisions shall be restored by the owners as per the provisions of approved building plan within 30 days from the date of issue of this notice,” the release added.

Commercial buildings, shopping malls, multiplexes, hospitals and apartments/housing projects are required to provide mandatory off-street parking as per the provisions of BDA (Planning & Building Standards) Regulations. Such parking areas are exempted from in calculation of the built-up area towards Floor Area Ratio (FAR).