OPF Housing Scheme: LDA not yet approved revised master plan

[Salman]

OPF Housing Scheme: LDA not yet approved revised master plan



The town planning wing of the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) has still not given approval to the revised master plan of the Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF) Housing Scheme located on the Raiwind Road after lapse of four years without assigning any reason, OPF officials told Business Recorder on Wednesday.

The OPF under the control of the federal government has submitted the revised master plan in April 2010 for approval after meeting all building requirements of the LDA town planning wing, they added. They said that to provide residential facilities to overseas Pakistanis, OPF had planned and established a number of housing schemes in different cities of the country. Thousand of plots created in these schemes were allotted to overseas Pakistanis. These schemes are located at the prime locations in the cities of Islamabad, Lahore, Gujrat, Peshawar, Dadu, Larkana and Mirpur (AJK).

However they said under the LDA Amendment Act 2013, LDA has been given sole authority to approve the new or a revised plan of a housing society. They said that the OPF Housing Scheme, Raiwind Road (Phase-I) Lahore is located about 5km from Thokar Niaz Baig. It is spread over an area of 2316 Kanals, 1733 residential and 93 commercial plots have been created. The residential plots were allotted to overseas Pakistanis after approval of the scheme by the relevant authority. The scheme is completely developed.

However they said that to meet the ever growing demand of the overseas Pakistanis for residential plots, OPF acquired more land adjacent to the first phase of the scheme and developed around 430 residential plots of various sizes and submitted a revised master plan to LDA in April 2010.