Fate of Sector-53 general housing scheme to be decided by Chandigarh Housing Board on August 6
Due to a poor response from the public, the CHB in March this year had decided to refund the processing fee of all applicants and planned the scheme afresh in order to make it more attractive.
The final decision on the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) general housing scheme, Sector 53—whether to scrap it or float a revised scheme—will be taken at the board of directors’ meeting scheduled for August 6.
The development comes after the UT urban planning department rejected the board’s request for allowing an increased floor area ratio (FAR) in the scheme. With CHB struggling to attract buyers owing to high pricing, the board had hoped that the increased FAR would help reduce the price. Twice had the CHB proposed to the urban planning department to increase the FAR.
The department, however, had contended that increasing the FAR for CHB’s general housing scheme could set a bad precedent for other housing schemes. Also, increasing the FAR at such a late stage when all the approvals for the project had been finalised would waste all the earlier work, the department added.
Due to a poor response from the public, the CHB in March this year had decided to refund the processing fee of all applicants and planned the scheme afresh in order to make it more attractive.
Only 178 applications were received against the 492 flats on offer in March this year. The scheme offered 3HK flats for as high as ₹1.8 crore, 2BHK flats for ₹1.5 crore and 1BHK flats for ₹95 lakh. The CHB had slashed the proposed rates by 15% to attract more buyers but it did not work.