Developers with a vision

The developers are mainly house builders, and taking into consideration the mammoth gap existing between the demographic profile of the country and its land size, they have done well in envisaging building towering apartment blocks as the required accommodation facilities for the teeming people of the port city.

In their vision of this wide-spectrum housing, however, they find a resistance coming from the habitual inhibition of the Chittagonians toward living in a house without a front yard and a backyard. Many a Chittagonian would rather prefer to have a plot of his own, build a house on it, and culture a garden in the vacant space. Many a Chittagonian, again, would simply resent the idea of living in tightly spaced, cubicle-roomed houses without an open yard.

Like all family dwellers, Chittagonians are also very thoroughly cautious about how they are going to be benefited in the bargain. They collect the brochures of the developing agencies, study them carefully, and check through the quality of the fittings and their prices. In any bargain, Chittagonians are a hard nut to crack; one can only discover it to his dismay.

This attitude may have dampened the initial exuberance of the high profile developers who at first came to Chittagong with a bang, but have become gradually anxious about the profitability aspect of their undertaking. Their anxiety has somehow affected the buyers' purchasing aspirations for apartments. The buyers in their turn think that if the business of the developers is not going to run well, will they (the developers) then compromise with quality? This surely is a deterring factor.

However, motivation once started cannot be simply stopped. So, the big scale developers may be doing their business now a little bit haltingly, but the private developers, owners of lands who are transforming their old houses into high-rising towers, seem to be in a better shape. Their investment is less; therefore their risk is less.

The developing business has most impacted those areas of the city that were already planned housing societies. Nasirabad Housing Society is surely leading in this regard. Every previous house (even though it was a good commodious house) in this Society is now being demolished, and reconstruction of a high-rise tower is underway.

Equity Property Development, in my knowledge, is the first developing agency that built a tower in Nasirabad, which turned out to be a fascinating complex added with modern gadgets and fittings, and a new vision in its architectural planning. Equity is the most successful developer in the city now, with a dozen more similar complexes being under construction at different places in the city.

Next is, of course, Sanmar, a local developer like Equity, which is making an apartment tower at Nasirabad, while it is also building a futuristic shopping complex on the CDA Avenue.

CONCORD, a very renowned developer agency of the country, has embarked upon their first venture in Chittagong. It will build a two-block tower with accommodation for 100 odd families at the Chatteswari Road. Just near it another apartment complex, owned by one Parvez, is near completion.

With all this house-building activity going on, Chittagong may be said to have stepped into a new form of urbanisation.