Residents urge Coimbatore district collector to protect their open space

COIMBATORE: Residents of KG Nagar in Kazhangal town panchayat have alleged that the local body is trying to take over their open space and construct a community hall on it.
The residents said the area’s residential welfare colony had taken a lot of effort since October last year to establish a park and playground for the residents. They appealed to the Coimbatore district collector to protect their open space where they want to create a park.
Residents said a 56-cent land had been handed over by a property developer to the panchayat as an open space reserve more than 16 years ago. “But the panchayat took no efforts to develop that space,” said the secretary of the KG Nagar Residents Welfare Association, S Sivakumar.
“In October last year, we residents got together and decided to make it a park and playground for our children and old people. We planted almost 250 tree saplings and set up a volleyball net and two badminton nets, creating three courts,” said the association president, Vellai Pandian.
The residents said the town panchayat board had approached them stating that they had decided to build a community hall in the land. “How can they build a community hall in a place meant to be an ‘open space reserve’ or a park? It is against the rules,” said Sivakumar.
However, Kazhangal panchayat president Ranganathan said the local body was taking less than a sixth of the land to construct the hall. “We are taking only 8.5 cents of the 56 cents. They can create a park in the remaining area. I chose this space for a 3,500 sq ft hall, which has been allotted Rs 74 lakh, because it is closer to the bus stand compared to the space earlier chosen. There are 45 feet wide roads on both sides, allowing vehicles to park on the side and is a clean area,” he said.
“The main reason why the residents are objecting to the hall is that they don’t want poor and lower caste people conducting functions in their neighbourhood,” he said.