Chandigarh Housing Board to auction 5-acre plot in IT Park for apartment project

Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) is all set to auction a five-acre plot in Information Technology Park, Chandigarh.

The plot will be offered to private builders on freehold basis for construction of an apartment project. The CHB board, in its meeting scheduled this week, will finalise the reserve price of the plot.

There are a total of eight freehold residential plot sites in IT Park which the CHB had earlier planned to auction in one-go. But now it has decided to first test the waters by offering a single plot in auction.

A total of 38 acres is available at the IT Park and multi-storey residential buildings will be constructed on plots of sizes varying from 3.5 to 6 acre.

“The builder will be allowed to construct the flats only after getting approval for building plans from the UT Administration. The number and categories of flats to be constructed and the number of storeys will be approved as per the laid-down provisions,” said a senior CHB official.

The project land is part of 123 acres that CHB got back from Parsvnath Developers after a long-drawn legal battle. It was in October 2006 that CHB had decided to develop residential, commercial and other infrastructure with Parsvnath Developers at IT Park, but project didn’t take off because of multiple reasons.

Thereafter, CHB failed to sell 18 residential and commercial sites at an e-auction in 2018. Due to the high reserve prices, not many developers showed interest in the auction. Thereafter, it decided to launch a general housing scheme on its own on two of the plots.

Awaiting environment clearance

CHB plans to construct 728 flats in three categories in seven-storey towers on IT Park plots 1 and 2, which are spread over 16.6 acres, for the general public. The towers will have two basements with a provision for parking of two cars for each flat, in addition to surface parking for visitors. The scheme will have 28 four-bedroom, 448 three-bedroom and 252 two-bedroom flats.

A four-bedroom flat is likely to cost nearly ₹2.75 crore, a three-bedroom flat ₹1.90 crore and a two-bedroom flat ₹1.30 crore. The prices will be finalised after all clearances are in place, before the launch of the project.

The CHB is set to launch the project after it gets the requisite environmental clearance, which it has applied for. All other approvals are in place, said the CHB official.

CHB has also written to the UT administration seeking a nod for auction of its leasehold properties as freehold properties. It has institutional sites, including an 8.23-acre hospital site. CHB’s earlier attempt to auction the hospital site at a reserve price of ₹344 crore in September, 2017 had failed.