A year after the Gorkha Earthquake, tremors have largely subsided and the government, albeit at snail’s pace, has deployed engineers to the affected areas to help quake victims rebuild safer houses.

However, the quake victims living in the city’s old business hubs such as Asan, Indrachowk, Makhan, New Road have hardly had respite from their problems. Land, rather lack of it, poses a problem to the people living in the heart of the city.

Many in the old parts of the city share a tall house built on a tiny piece of land with other relatives, not at all safe in the event of an earthquake. With many of the older houses either collapsed or wrecked beyond repair they have no solution but to build a new one.  The question, however, is as to how to build houses which are both safe and spacious to accommodate at least two families.

Shanta Bajracharya, a co-owner a house which has not collapsed due the wooden support, with her two nephews. Bajracharya, 66, is as confused about rebuilding the house now as she was on the day of the earthquake struck on April 25.  The house, which lies deep inside a meandering alley in Makhan, is built on a very small plot of land (roughly one anna in size). Bajracharya owns the ground floor and her nephews occupies the floors above.

“I have no idea how we will arrange the money for it or our accommodation if it cannot be built as tall as it was before,” says Bajracharya, whose only source of income used to be the rent room in the house.

Many more in the heart of the city share the fate of Shanta, running out of ideas after their houses were either razed to the ground or badly damaged by the Great Earthquake and its aftershocks.  “The bigger problem is what will happen to our property sharing dynamics if the new building is built shorter,” said Sobha Prajapati of Bhaktapur, whose only piece of property is a house built on two annas of land, which she shares with her brother-in-law.

Like Prajapati and Bajracharya, many others are caught in two minds: whether to go for a tall building or move away from their heritage.  Prajapati, 59, added that most of the families in Bhaktapur have built multi-storied houses on small pieces of land to accommodate a family of three siblings with their wives and children.

Recent media reports about house pooling, moratorium on tall buildings have only compounded their misery. The government on its part says it is only concerned about the people’s safety and restoring the heritage.

“We urge people to follow the guidelines we have set for construction of buildings. Until they are met we will not sanction the house designs. We are concerned about

the safety of the city dwellers,” said Rudra Singh Tamang, chief and executive officer of Kathmandu Metropolitan City.