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Building owners agree to demolish top floors
Owners of tall buildings along the southern boundary of Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) have agreed to demolish a few storeys that are posing a significant threat to flight safety.Owners of tall buildings along the southern boundary of Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) have agreed to demolish a few storeys that are posing a significant threat to flight safety.
Six residential houses in Koteshwor have been deemed to be too close to the airport for safety reasons.
Basanta Acharya, legal officer of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC), said the owners have informed they were ready to bring down a few stories of their buildings. “Owners of five of the buildings have informed us verbally, while one belonging to Santa Lal Shahi, which is located on critical zone, has written us to send an engineer to complete the process to bringing down the structure,” said Acharya.
Amid concerns raised by international airlines, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (Caan) in its report had pointed out the six buildings threatening air safety and recommended that they be brought down.
Particularly, international airlines flying wide-body aircraft are forced to cut their passenger numbers due to the obstacles created by the high-rise structures in the single approach area.
Recently, a technical team under KMC engineer Bir Bahadur Khadka had submitted a report on the status of the houses after conducting an obstacle survey in Koteshwor, which lies on the southern end of the TIA. Among the buildings in the area, west of Pespicola-Jadibuti road, six were found to be on obstacle limitation surface, an area beyond the aerodrome boundary that must be protected from obstacles for safe takeoff and landing of aircraft.
Likewise, four buildings were found to be in the critical zone, meaning no further physical structure can be added to them. Rest of the buildings have been cleared by the Khadka-led committee.
Earlier, people living in the area had filed a complaint
at the Parliamentary Development Committee after the Caan decided to reacquire 149 ropanies of land eight years after the owners were permitted to build houses on their plots.
Caan’s move was aimed at constructing drainage and extending airport perimeter for preventing construction of houses on the southern side of the airport for air safety.
The process of land acquisition in the area started in 1979 and the locals had been barred to build houses there for more than 25 years, envisaging more land would be required for the airport. However, the locals started building structures after the government dropped the plan through a Cabinet decision in 2007.