Sunday, February 19, 2012

Of cars, trees and community-planting on OMR

That there is positive co-relation between cars and trees is a fact that is well-known, if widely ignored. The scanned text here (left) is taken from a newspaper advt. supplement sponsored by a real estate developer (not Mantri). Residents at a fledging Mantri Synergy have, for the last several months, been asking Mantri's landscape architect to allocate space for community tree-planting.
Former chief of PropCare, Mr Sivaram,(who left Mantri's early this year)was receptive to our plea, and arranged for planting as many as 16 saplings under our community-planting programme. But then Mr Sivaram had limitations. Which was why I addressed our case in an e-mail to Mantri's landscape architect Mr Sekar James. This was nearly three months back. The relevant bit in my mail,dated Oct.25, 2011, a copy of which was marked to PropCare, reads:
....A recent post in our blog - How about tulsi, Mr James ? - refers to issues relating to open space use in Mantri Synergy, Padur (OMR). Whenever we raise such issues with the Mantri management they say they need your clearance or they claim your approval was awaited.... But then we don't usually hear any further from Mantri's.
The issues raised in my mail pertained to:
1)Re-locating children's play area.
2)Allocation of tree-planting space for community planting programme. Besides, there is this question of having to neutralize carbon emission casued by about 1,500 AC units (for 700 plus apartments complex)
3)Finding space for vermicompost sheds.
4) Identification of OSR in Mantri Synergy, so that residents can be involved in its development.
We do understand, Mr James, that landscape architects have to make do with the open space made available by the the estate developer. And, I have no doubt that you would find ways to accommodate our plea, given that the built-up area in any residential complex shouldn't exceed 30 percent of the total area, and you have most of 70 percent space for landscaping.
Question is whether Mantri Synergy a) adheres to the 30/70 built-up/open space guideline;and b) whether the 70 percent open-space excludes open car-parking area.

My plea remains unanswered till date.
If anything, work is in progress on creating additional car parking, even on the space where Mantri's landscape architect had no objection to be used as 'Community Planting Area'.

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