A spacious house with adequate space for parking; gardening; facilities including swimming pool, sports courses, and walking park, and protective fences – these are some of the features that draw people to gated communities.

But, what lurks behind those wonderful photographs and video promos can sometimes leave you shell shocked, as residents from such communities share how restricted they feel and how blatantly civil laws are being violated.

While, people own the house on paper, they are not allowed to do alterations, even minor ones like changing the outer paint of their houses, Even though they have access to all the facilities provided, the properties are still being controlled by the promoters.

According to S. Kanagasundaram, a civic activist from Coimbatore, “Gated communities are the ghettoes of modern times,” as people in these enclosures live in a different world altogether, totally isolated from the outer world.

Apart from the restrictions imposed by the promoters, Kanasundaram also adds that such gated communities encourage violations of the civic laws, as it is always behind closed gates.

“Our Town Planning Law does not have a terminology called ‘Gated Community.’ No approval is given for a gate that stands majestically and controls the entry and exit. More often it could be even a scheme road of public use, as is the case with the gated communities on Nanjundapuram Road and Saravanampatti,” he says.

He further adds that these communities do not have a single approval, as they are owned by individual owners, and claimed that this also leads to violation.

“There have been instances where some people have altered the structure and constructed rooms without getting approvals. Sometimes the promoters stop it, but they often allow it as long as the outer paint remains the same. The promoters themselves build sites without approvals as it cannot be seen by outsiders,” claims another activist.

Activist Lakshmanan says that despite paying taxes, including property taxes, the owners of the houses are still paying separate maintenance charge of Rs.1000 per month for resources like road, water, drainage, sewer, and street lights, to the promoter.

“If we are paying the taxes, then it is the duty of the civic body to maintain such things. The promoter has no right to intervene,” he explains.

The civic bodies and even the government is unaware of these violations as the even government vehicles are not allowed easily inside the gates. The vehicles of the residents are identified with stickers.

Claiming that there are more than 600 houses in some gated communities, sold at Rs.30 lakh to Rs.2 crores per house, the activists also say that it becomes hard for the civic authorities to check on the violations from outside.

“It is high time civic authorities inspect all gated communities and take possession of their common areas such as roads, OSRs, etc. Scheme Roads, that are lost due to these developments, should also be restored and brought to usage of common public,” Kanagasundaram says.