Speakers, including urban planners and environmentalists, on Tuesday warned that the revision of the Detailed Area Plan for 2022–2035 raising building-height limits across most parts of Dhaka would further increase public suffering.
They said that the government bowed down to the pressure from the developers and decided to amend the DAP to increase the floor area ratios, housing-unit ratios, floor units and population density, ignoring the opinions of planners and other relevant professionals.
They described the move as deeply concerning and disappointing.
Their criticisms came at a press conference titled ‘For whose interest has DAP been revised again?’ organised by urban planners, environmentalists, economists and other professionals at the Dhaka Reporters Unity in the city.
They demanded revisions of the ‘flawed’ amendments to the DAP and draft Dhaka Metropolitan Building Rules 2025, which they alleged were made to serve the unscrupulous demands of business interest groups. Â
Having expressed concern over changes in the draft Building Rules 2025, they noted that once an Occupancy Certificate was issued, it would no longer need to be renewed every five years, and that the requirement for approval by a special committee for large and special projects had been scrapped.
Writer Firoz Ahmed, who read out the key note speech, said that the DAP revision would increase the number of high-rise buildings in the already overpopulated city of Dhaka, heaping pressure on its transport, utilities and all other civic services that are already on the verge of collapse.
He further said that the city did not have the capacity to bear such pressure, and such initiatives would push Dhaka’s liveability to the brink of destruction. Â
Stating that while the DAP originally intended to somewhat reduce population pressure on Dhaka, limiting the per block population density to 250, the revised plan the density limit had been raised 300 per block, which the press conference denounced as a completely reckless decision.
Firoz Ahmed said that in the major cities worldwide population densities were limited between 150 and 200 per block.
The speakers said that after the DAP was first gazetted in 2022, the initiative to revise it twice within just three years under pressure from the real estate companies was ‘suicidal for the city and a major obstacle to the effective practice of urban planning.’
They also said that although the revised DAP claimed to prioritise environmental protection, in reality, most of the changes were brought to serve commercial interests in expense of the environment and public good.Â
Their demands included determining population density, Floor Area Ratio values, and the number of families per plot separately for each locality, reducing the growing pressure on Dhaka and ensuring the city’s decentralisation through the formulation and effective implementation of the necessary planning strategies.Â
Bangladesh Institute of Planners president Adil Mohammed Khan and Bangladesh Tree Protection Movement coordinator Amirul Rajiv also spoke at the event, among others.Â
The interim government on October 19 approved in principle the amendments to the DAP and the draft Dhaka Metropolitan Building Construction Rules 2025.
The revised DAP will soon be gazetted, said a press release issued by Ministry of Housing and Public Works.