‘Don’t make it another Zirakpur or Gurgaon’: 4 architects sound alarm over Chandigarh’s future
As Chandigarh weighs major changes to its master plan, architects Sumit Kaur, Noor Dasmesh Singh, Kapil Setia and Aashray Ahuja urge for infrastructure-led, heritage-sensitive growth.
While Sumit Kaur (left) warned that Chandigarh’s infrastructure was already stretched to capacity, Kapil Setia (right) said the proposed changes should respect the city's unique urban character. Written by Serena Gujral
In January 1951, French-Swiss architect and urban planner Le Corbusier was commissioned, on the recommendation of Punjab’s chief engineer, P L Varma, to design Chandigarh’s master plan—a long-term blueprint meant to guide sustainable urban growth. Since then, the planning framework has been periodically updated, with the Chandigarh Master Plan 2031 currently serving as the guiding document. But the latest proposed amendments—including high-rise buildings, stilt parking, increased Floor Area Ratios (FARs) and mixed land use—have triggered concern among architects and urban planners, who warn that the city is at a critical crossroads.
With barely two weeks left for the review committee to consider public objections and suggestions, four prominent architects told The Indian Express that the proposed changes risk compromising Chandigarh’s infrastructure, environment and identity if implemented without long-term planning.
Need regional planning, not internal densification
Sumit Kaur, a former chief architect and urban designer who led the original draft of the Chandigarh Master Plan 2031, strongly opposed the changes. She argued that Chandigarh is now landlocked, fully built and under pressure from aggressive regional urbanisation, but instead of distributing this pressure across the Tricity region, the revised plan seeks to internalise it through high-rise towers and drastically increased FARs.
Kaur said protecting only Phase I while radically altering Phases II and III would undermine Corbusier’s vision of Chandigarh as a unified living organism. The city’s low-rise, human-scale design based on the principles of “sun, space and verdure”, she said, would be heavily compromised by 30-metre towers.
She also warned that Chandigarh’s infrastructure—water supply, sewage, roads and social amenities—is already stretched to capacity, making vertical growth unsustainable and merely a short-term fix. Raising another concern, Kaur said stilt-parking structures could create “soft storey” earthquake risks in Chandigarh’s Seismic Zone IV.
Instead, she advocated a binding Interstate Regional Planning Board for the Tricity to distribute growth more equitably. She also called for a pedestrian-first, transit-oriented framework with a Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) and underpasses instead of flyovers.
Chandigarh, Kaur said, is a globally recognised urban-design masterpiece that should not compromise its integrity to compete in a commercial real-estate race with neighbouring cities.
Change must be evidence-led, not market-driven
Noor Dasmesh Singh, head of NOOR Architects Consultants, also cautioned against hurried deregulation. While acknowledging the pressures of population growth, changing housing needs and land scarcity, Singh said any change must be evidence-led rather than market-driven.
He stressed that Chandigarh was built through calibrated, capacity-based planning, balancing density, mobility, green cover and infrastructure. Any major densification, he argued, requires rigorous technical reassessment first.
Before altering FARs, building heights or land use, Singh said authorities must determine whether the city’s water supply, sewage, stormwater systems, roads and civic services can handle the additional load.
Pointing to Gurgaon and Zirakpur as cautionary examples, he said rapid vertical growth without matching infrastructure creates congestion, ecological stress and fragmented urban form.
Singh also emphasised that Chandigarh’s future cannot be planned in isolation. He advocates a binding Interstate Regional Planning framework that treats Mohali, Panchkula, New Chandigarh and Zirakpur as strategic partners, using satellite towns as “release valves” instead of concentrating density within Chandigarh itself.
On mobility, Singh rejected private vehicle-centric solutions that “induce demand”. Instead, he supported an integrated MRTS for the Tricity along with pedestrian-friendly planning and non-motorised transport networks.
He also warned that unchecked verticalisation could alter wind patterns, worsen the urban heat-island effect, threaten heritage trees through road widening and reduce soil permeability, increasing flood risks. For Singh, the goal is neither to freeze Chandigarh in time nor deregulate it for short-term gains, but to evolve it in a phased and context-sensitive manner.
Infrastructure upgrades must come first
Former chief architect Kapil Setia took the middle ground. Accepting that high-density housing and vertical growth are inevitable due to market demands, he insisted that any transition must be systematic and infrastructure-focused.
Setia warned that the proposed changes appear to imitate neighbouring cities instead of respecting Chandigarh’s unique urban character. He called for a comprehensive carrying-capacity assessment covering water, sewage, roads, schools, healthcare and open spaces before any increase in FAR or building heights is approved.
Saying he saw high-rises as a natural evolution, he argued that infrastructure upgrades and transport redesign must precede any densification to avoid severe congestion.
He also said that architects must remain sensitive to Chandigarh’s existing context, adding that the Chandigarh Urban Arts Commission should simultaneously approve urban design and building plans, including green coding and carbon-footprint considerations.
On the proposed Tribune Flyover, Setia called it a redundant and short-sighted solution. Referring to an earlier scrapped 7.6-km corridor project connecting Sector 32 hospital to Zirakpur, he said similar traffic-diversion corridors should be explored instead.
According to Setia, there are several alternatives to flyovers, including stronger public transport systems and shared mobility services like Uber. Flyovers, he argued, encourage private vehicle use and unplanned urban sprawl, as seen in Dera Bassi and Zirakpur.
For Setia, the question is not whether Chandigarh should change, but how to do so responsibly and systematically.
Limit vertical growth, prioritise mobility
Noor Dasmesh Singh (left) emphasised that Chandigarh’s future cannot be planned in isolation, and Aashray Ahuja (right) warned against the pitfalls of prioritising private real-estate development over public infrastructure.
Aashray Ahuja, director of design studio Urban Research + Architecture Practice (URap), believes Chandigarh’s Master Plan is overdue for revision, arguing that no city can remain rigidly loyal to a 20-year-old blueprint amid rapid population growth and rural-to-urban migration.
Given that Chandigarh is completely landlocked by Mohali and Panchkula, Ahuja said group housing and selective vertical expansion are a natural and unavoidable evolution. However, he said the proposed amendments neglect two crucial pillars of the city’s survival: transportation and the environment.
By prioritising private real-estate development over public infrastructure, Ahuja warned, Chandigarh risks following the chaotic and congested path of cities such as Gurgaon and Bengaluru, undermining its foundational design principles.
To avoid this, he said, vertical growth must remain strategic rather than scattered, and should largely be confined to Phase III and the Industrial Area to preserve views of the Shivalik hills.
Ahuja also argued that Chandigarh must learn from global planning models. Referring to Singapore, he noted that increases in FAR or ground coverage there are legally linked to compensatory green cover and sustainable infrastructure measures.
Returning to Corbusier’s philosophy, Ahuja described Chandigarh’s roads as “arteries” that are already severely clogged. Instead of large concrete interventions like the Tribune Chowk flyover, which he says could trigger a domino effect of car dependency, he advocated a shift toward robust public transit.
Pointing out that cities such as San Francisco and Seoul began dismantling flyovers decades ago, Ahuja recommends optimised bus grids, pedestrian walkways, cycle tracks and Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) corridors connecting satellite towns.
As an alternative to the Tribune flyover, he proposed ‘The Overloop’—an elevated roundabout above existing ones that, he claimed, can ease congestion without road widening while preserving local ecology and reducing tree loss.
Despite differing views on the extent of vertical growth, Chandigarh’s architectural community broadly agreed that the current draft addresses real-estate pressures without matching investment in infrastructure, mobility and sustainability.
As the review period nears its end, the UT Administration faces a defining choice: whether Chandigarh will evolve as a heritage-sensitive model of high-density urbanism or slide toward the congestion and disorder that many architects associate with Zirakpur and Gurgaon.
What the architects flagged
• The proposed revamp prioritises real-estate development without matching investments in infrastructure and sustainability
• Chandigarh’s water, sewage, roads and civic amenities cannot support major densification without upgrades
• Chandigarh’s growth should be planned regionally with Mohali, Panchkula, New Chandigarh and Zirakpur.
• The chaotic urban models of Gurgaon and Zirakpur should not be replicated in Chandigarh
• Environmental concerns include heat-island effects, flood risks, shrinking green cover and loss of heritage trees
• Chandigarh falls in Seismic Zone IV, raising concerns over stilt-parking “soft storey” structures
• Limited and strategic vertical growth, especially in Phase III and the Industrial Area, was preferred
Serena Gujral is an intern with The Indian Express.
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