The Union ministry of civil aviation has started easing height restrictions on buildings at the BKC, one of the costliest business districts in the city. The first to get its nod was the seven-star Hotel Accor. Recently, the ministry also granted permission to Wadhwa Developers and Parini Developers to construct 73-metre tall(or up to 16-storey) buildings. Currently, the tallest buildings at the BKC — Platina, Naman Centre and two commercial buildings by Tata and Raheja developers — stand at 52 metres (or up to 12 storeys) each.

The ministry was opposed to the idea of highrises at the BKC as a major portion of it comes within the flight path of aeroplanes taking off from the Santa Cruz (domestic) and Sahar (international) airports. It has not eased the height restriction on all buildings; it has started considering cases individually.

The MMRDA, however, is not happy. It wants every building at the BKC to be allowed to rise "not just 73 metres, but 90 metres".

MMRDA commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad said, "We are hoping that the aviation ministry will allow the building height to be raised to 90 metres. It will give a big boost to the property market."

Top corporate houses, such as Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, ING Vysya Bank, Raghuleela Leasing and Real Estate Pvt Ltd, Starlite Systems Pvt Ltd, Satnam Realtors, Parini Developers Pvt Ltd, Shri Naman Developers Pvt Ltd, Oriental Bank of Commerce and State Bank of India, have purchased additional FSIs.

Is the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) suffering from hubris? Its plan to set up a 101-storey iconic commercial tower in Wadala at a phenomenal cost of over Rs 4,000 crore has raised serious questions about its sense of priority among urban experts and town planners. It has already been touted as one of the 10 tallest buildings in the world.

MMRDA’s think-tank has estimated that the project will earn it a rent of Rs 1,800 crore a year by leasing out 60 lakh sq ft of build up space in the tower to corporates and MNCs. But with recent estimates showing that Mumbai is expected to be flooded with over two crore sq ft of office space by 2011, real estate experts are skeptical about the financial feasibility of MMRDA’s iconic tower.

As it is, office space is going abegging with the numero uno central business district of Nariman Point currently staring at a vacancy level of 10% to 15%. Commercial lease rentals have already crashed by 25% to 50% in different commercial enclaves of the city. And the situation is expected to worsen with excessive supply of office space flooding the market in the next two years.

Knight Frank India chairman Pranay Vakil said given the market conditions the MMRDA project does not make any sense. "The Dharavi redevelopment project itself is expected to generate two crore sq ft of commercial space. It will be difficult to see what the demand will be for office space two to three years down the line,” he said.

A former state government town planner, not wishing to be identified, feared that the MMRDA tower is a big financial risk. "Will they get the right kind of returns. Moreover, is Wadala a prominent location to set up such a building?” he wondered.

Former MMRDA commissioner Dev Mehta said the authority should not behave like a builder. "Its core focus is planning and infrastructure development. MMRDA was never into constructing individual buildings. It has got its priorities wrong,” he observed. Another government source said the MMRDA has always been governed and controlled by politicians and a coterie of bureaucrats and has never been a representative body for Mumbai.

"Is it a real estate agency or a planning agency? MMRDA seems to be on a development spree and less involved in planning for the city,” said Aneerudha Paul, director of the Kamla Raheja Vidanidhi institute for architecture and environmental studies.
Environmentalist Shyam Chainani said MMRDA was set up as a planning for the entire Mumbai metropolitan region spread over 4,000 sq kms. "There are only a few countries in the world which are still constructing tall buildings. They are not cost and energy efficient,” he added.

Chainani questioned the MMRDA’s logic of building an iconic structure. "At what cost? Are we saying we are better than Dubai?” he asked, adding that MMRDA is not a building contractor.

According to the US-based Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (BTBUH), tall buildings have enjoyed almost two decades of unprecedented development built in greater number, height and geographical spread than at any time in history. "However, that position is now under threat from the twin challenges of global climate change and a severe international economic recession. Many projects are being cancelled, put on hold or reducing their pace of moving forward as the recession tightens, and questions are increasingly being asked of the sustainable credentials of high rise, especially in light of some of the design excesses of the past decade,” said its latest newsletter.
CTBUH is holding a conference later this year to discuss whether tall buildings are meeting the challenges of climate change and the appropriateness for a tall building to be used as an icon to project the vitality of a city on a competitive world business stage.

On Monday, at a panel discussion held by the housing rights group Ghar Banao Ghar Bhacao Andolan, several social activists highlighted the absolute lack of people-centric development in a majority of policies of the state government. The activists who were part of the panel include Urban Studies professor at Tata Institute of Social Studies Amita Bhide, architect and urban researcher Neera Adakar, transport expert Sudhir Badami and leader of National Alliance of People’s Movement Medha Patkar.

“The problem with committees like the one that has been formed for transforming Mumbai into a ‘slumless’ city as well as existing schemes like SRA, is that it is focused on increasing the Floor Space Index. No thought is given to the fact that resettling slumdwellers in tiny flats in highrises means adding more density and straining the infrastructure,” said Adarkar. She gave the example of the Dharavi Redevelopment Scheme where slumdwellers were first promised bigger homes and then the FSI was increased in a way that the developers too get to construct more flats for selling in the open market.

Questioning the direction in which development in Mumbai is headed, Amita Bhide added that only 18,000 families hold yellow ration cards (meant for those Below Poverty Line) in a city where 60% of the 13 million population live in slums. “Such development which neglects the poor will lead serious consequences in the long run,” said Bhide.

NAPM leader Medha Patkar too lashed out at the state government’s pro-developer policies that ignored the needs of the urban poor. Taking a dig at MNS leader Raj Thackeray’s sons of the soil tirade, Patkar said that most of the migrants who have come to Mumbai post the year 2000 are those from the neglected parts of Maharashtra and not those from the northern states of the country.

The panel includes former chief secretary D M Sukhtankar, former IAS officer Sunder Burra, urban planner Vidyadhar Phatak, architect Shirish Patel, housing expert Chandrashekhar Prabhu, architects Arvind and Neera Adarkar, director of the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture Aniruddh Paul, Society for the Promotion of Area Research Centres (SPARC) Director Sheela Patel and SPARC founder and National Slum Dwellers Federation convener Jockin Arputham.

The convener of the committee will be Gautam Chatterjee, officer on special duty for the Rs 15,000-cr Dharavi Redevelopment Project.

The panel will advise the state government on aspects like setting up of transit camps, layout of rehabilitation tenements, facilities to be provided to such buildings, the civic infrastructure to be provided to the five sectors planned in the project and how it would be linked to the infrastructure in the city.

The committee will also advise the government on ensuring environmental sustainability of the project, besides aspects like the baseline social and economic surveys, laying down eligibility criteria for rehabilitation, complaint redressal, legal and commercial matters, setting up of co-operative housing societies for the rehabilitated buildings and a federation of such institutions, laying down responsibilities and ensuring co-ordination between various state government agencies during the execution of the project. The panel would also advise the government on measures to be taken to protect and maintain living standards of locals.

Original article here.

A Right to Information (RTI) application filed by activist Vidya Vaidya revealed that many such plots on the DP reserved for municipal markets have disappeared and, instead, commercial super markets have come up.

Similarly, reservation of open spaces for recreations grounds and playgrounds, sculptor’s studios, municipal primary schools and hospitals have also disappeared from the DP.

In 2006, General Arun Kumar Vaidya Nagar Rahawasi Sangh had won a case where the concerned authorities were asked to build municipal markets within two years.

“But no action has been taken either by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) or Maharashtra Housing and Area Developmental Authority (Mhada) so far,” said Vaidya.

Raising an important point, another citizen activist asked, “Why is the new DP needed when the ward office allows places to get encroached? How will the new DP ensure that the plots reserved won’t disappear?”

Vaidya opined that there are many such municipal markets existing all over the city and suburbs that can be utilised to solve the hawking problem.

“Hawkers like the ones on Hill Road and Linking Road and vegetable vendors, especially who hawk wares that are not site specific, can be shifted to municipal markets to give dignity to their profession,” said Vaidya.

Original article here