If memory serves correctly, the man who is now Sindh’s governor, Kamran Tessori, was almost arrested in 2008 over a real estate project, whose name merits no prizes for guessing: Gold City. The allegation was that former chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim of Badin had given Tessori 80 acres of a historical graveyard. It would therefore be a forgivable stretch of the imagination to assume that Governor Tessori may have somewhat of a predilection for real estate—even though his lineage earned its distinct reputation from bullion.

This might explain why Governor Tessori was so amenable to paying a visit to ABAD House to meet members of the Association of Builders and Developers, possibly one of the most powerful lobbies in Karachi where land is a precious commodity. Tessori had just received a delegation of ABAD members at Governor House where they made two demands: push the regularization ordinance through and evacuate some land off the Northern bypass and Super Highway from land grabbers.

To the gripe about land grabbers, Tessori proffered this gem: A builder phoned me at midnight and said the land mafia had grabbed his land. “I replied: “Bhai qabza raat kay indheray me hi hota he.”

If this anecdote was meant to allay fears, it might have achieved the opposite: indicate that land grabbing was the norm in Karachi and should be tolerated as such. Tessori’s subsequent promises sounded hollow. He said land grabbers would do better to make arrangements to leave Karachi and take up elsewhere, Istanbul or any other place, as he would not allow them to work in Karachi anymore.

The real reason, however, that the builders were courting Tessori was the “regularization ordinance” or the Sindh Commission for Regularization of Construction Ordinance, 2021. If passed, this law would become the equivalent of turning black buildings white, to butcher our favourite national Laundromat metaphor.

The Sindh government drafted it in December after the Supreme Court suddenly ordered for a project, Nasla Tower, to be torn down for illegally being built on a service road. It is difficult to overstate the magnitude of the verdict for builder circles and indeed, the city that watched in wide-eyed disbelief as the 11-floor building with 44 apartments was slowly and spectacularly reduced to the largest mountain of rubble Shahrah-e-Faisal has ever seen. It sent real estate’s blood running cold—if the Supreme Court could demolish Nasla Tower, what of lesser enterprises?

The Sindh government prepared the bill to “regularize” or sanction illegal housing projects, especially if people had been living in them. Nobody wanted another Nasla nightmare every again. The ordinance said a seven-member commission would be set up to consider cases of illegal construction for regularisation. It would be headed by a retired judge and would decide on conditions and penalties to regularise unauthorised buildings so that demolitions could be avoided. But as the Sindh Assembly was not in session, it was up to then Sindh Governor Imran Ismail, to sign the ordinance into law (instead of having a debate on the floor of the house). A governor has these powers under Article 128 of the Constitution.

The only problem was that Imran Ismail, a PTI man, was not ready to play ball because the federal government (read: PTI) and the Sindh government (read: PPP) did not see eye to eye, to put it mildly. And since the Governor is the Federal government’s representative, Imran Ismail was not inclined to sign on the dotted line to help the PPP-led Sindh government get this law passed. ABAD members applied pressure but nothing could be helped as relations between the federal and provincial governments had hit rock bottom.

Except now Sindh has a new governor: Kamran Tessori. This is why the builders think now is a good time to go back to the drawing board and take up the regularization ordinance. This governor gets along with the Sindh government. A lot is at stake because builders have had cold feet about new projects since the Nasla Tower fiasco. ABAD wants the government to have a proper regularization law so that some projects which are in violation of building bylaws get a clean chit.

And so on Wednesday, at ABAD House, Tessori sounded right on the money. “If the Supreme Court wants to demolish a building it can happen,” he said. “And if the SBCA director-general has some issue with any builder the builder will be in hot water. All of this happens because we don’t have proper legislation.” Sources in ABAD said that the Governor invited ABAD’s chairman to sit with him to give final shape to the regularization ordinance after which it would go to the Sindh Assembly.

Builders would want “regularization” for existing and future projects because many of them have run afoul of building bylaws. All of these rules are laid down in the Sindh Building Control Authority Ordinance, 1979. “If you look at Karachi today, what little has been protected and looked after is because of the by-laws,” said Arif Hasan, architect and town planner. All you need to do is compare Surjani Town with Orangi and you’ll see the difference between planned and unplanned settlements. By-laws make all the difference on how you can build and what you can’t do.

There are three common violations:

1. Compulsory open space or COS: in which you have to leave say 20% of the plot open for ventilation in the space between the building and road, for example. If you go around Karachi you will see tall building after building erected so close to boundary walls that it is suffocating.
2. Floor to Area Ratio or FAR: These ratios 1:4 or 1:12 say that you can build four times the ground floor or in the case of a high-rise 12 times.
3. The third most common building code violation is of the dimensions of rooms and staircases within the building.

Some robberies just take place in broad daylight.