Thiruvananthapuram: City Plaza residents asked to vacate building
File PhotoTHIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The city corporation has initiated steps to cancel the building numbers and trade licences issued to the residents and shop owners of City Plaza, a residential-cum-commercial building at Ulloor citing concerns over stability of the structure.
As many as 27 families reside here and it houses 30 shops as well. During the heavy showers in October, a portion of the retaining wall of the building collapsed and the debris fell over the premises of the apartment in the adjacent compound.
The civic body issued a notice to the flat owners association and partners of the construction firm following this incident and communicated that the wall is in a precarious state and that its foundation is exposed in a way affecting the stability of the structure.
It was directed to stop all activities in the building and to shift the residents to the nearby flat. The officials with the engineering wing said that there was no concrete response to the notice following which the matter was forwarded to the district collector.
On Monday, Thiruvananthapuram tahsildar issued an eviction notice to the residents and the staff saying that they should vacate the building within three days of receiving the notice.
Officials with the district administration (disaster management) said that a stability assessment report is being awaited from the public works department.
Meanwhile the corporation is learnt to have cancelled the building numbers of the apartments in the building and has taken steps to cancel the trade licences also. “We have been reminding them about the need to reconstruct the retaining wall, but they wouldn’t listen. It is not safe for the residents to live there and they have to be shifted,” a corporation official said.
The residents however said that the corporation failed to act against unauthorised constructions which were done in the building. “These unauthorized constructions have been going on for years and we even took legal recourse but the corporation failed to act. Now the authorities should arrange a temporary accommodation for us until this issue is settled. We don’t understand why the association is being penalised,” said V G Eswar, secretary of City Plaza flat owner’s association.
One of the partners of the construction firm, who did not want to be named, said that there was nothing wrong with the stability of the structure and once the retaining wall is built, the issue will be settled. As per the notice, the deadline for vacating the premises ends on Wednesday and the residents are in the dark about the future course of action.
