A few days back, I heard a financial consultant Faye D’Souza on
Radio one 94.3 talking about how might the
City and State utilize the 1080
acres being released by the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) for the betterment of
the City; and the resultant impact on real estate prices on the eastern part of
Mumbai. It is quite obvious that the builder lobby will try and exert pressure
to get most of the land sold to them; even though the Minister for Shipping has
said that the land will be reserved for creating public infrastructure –
something that the City desperately needs. The last time the City heard such a
promise was when the Mill lands were released and there was much talk of
reserving at least 30% for increasing the green cover and 30% for social
housing and infra needs of the City and those being affected – namely, the out of work mill
workers. And, for them were built - super luxury (very expensive) residential and
commercial towers, 5 star hotels and glitzy malls. The original plan was to
bring down the rate of housing and offices in South Mumbai; but the result was
just the opposite. Prices doubled, builders made tons of money and the City got a big zero. Let’s
ensure that the land is actually put to the correct use this time around, and
this can only happen if the people voice themselves to put "Mumbai First"– else we will all look
very “foolish” – yet again.
Anyway; the thought that struck me while hearing the program
– Does this City really have an overall vision plan on how it intends to shape up in the next
20 years or each major land bank owner gets to decide what is good? Lo and behold; a couple of days later I read that the City has
released its development
plan 2014-34 (DP) for public debate.
Never mind that it has been released in 2015 and will not be put in force until 2016. The headline I read did not focus
much on the plan; but screamed out the possibility of the planning authorities granting up to 8 FSI for building
construction. Floor Space Index (FSI) represents the amount of permissible
construction on a plot in relation to the size of the plot. (It means the same as
Floor Area Ratio or FAR used in other places).
From what I could make out of this plan, the exact FSI that
a plot could attract was very arbitrary, except that, a minimum guaranteed FSI
was prescribed zone wise - based on its proximity to transportation nodes and
current versus projected population density. Land bank holders must have gone
orgasmic with this news and builders would have called their spin doctors to
figure out how their under construct buildings could take advantage of the
situation; never mind if the construction would have to be stalled till the DP came
into effect at the inconvenience of those who had either financed or bought premises
in their developments.
I cannot understand the true rationale behind this move of offering higher FSI.
What is its exact intention? Is it aimed at bringing down land prices or rates
that builders would charge or improve the way buildings are made or even
improve the general quality of life? Going vertical is not a bad idea.
Technology today has made sure that 50+ floor buildings are no longer exceptions. In the developed
world there is serious thought being given to Super Skyscraper
Cities in which every building acts as a self contained and self sufficient unit in every way including green
sustainable and renewable utility concepts. Think of it; how would it be if the entire population of a ward within Mumbai were housed within a total of 50 buildings or less?
However, going by experience, except for making this overpopulated
under provided (infra and utilities) expensive island even more populated and
more expensive there is nothing else that the DP will achieve. Correction, make
land bank owners and builders super billionaires along with the men in power
who could with a few drop of ink arbitrarily pen the exact FSI to be granted on the
proposal file. A couple of months back, a friend of mine who happens to be a big
investor in Mumbai real estate mentioned that such a move was on the anvil. From what I
understood then, the FSI was to be linked to plot size. Bigger the plot - higher
the FSI granted - but at a progressively lower building footprint based on setbacks linked
with height. He drew out an approximate table which I thought made absolute
sense. The move he said was based on forcing builders to consolidate the
multitude of small plots to claim the higher FSI and in turn create enough open
spaces for gardens, parking, road widening, laying of utility lines, and
increasing light - ventilation and safety margins between 2 buildings – all of
which are lacking at present in 80% of the projects under development in this
City. Should redevelopment of certain plots become unviable based on the new norms;
then the same could be surrendered to the City or Developers for the highest market
priced compensation and the City or Developer could use it for creating public
utilities needed by that area. In a way cut out any ambiguity making building proposals simpler, transparent, and remove all special loopholes that were currently being misused.
Plot Size
|
Max. Ground Cover
|
Max FSI*
|
Max. Height*
(Subject to Funnel Clearance from Aviation)
|
< 2000m2
|
60%
|
2 + 0.3 (premium/TDR)
|
6 X road width
|
2000 - <4000 m2
|
55%
|
3 + 0.3 (premium/TDR)
|
8 X road width
|
4000 - <6000 m2
|
50%
|
4 + 0.3 (premium/TDR)
|
9 X road width
|
>6000 m2
|
45%
|
5 + 0.3 (premium/TDR)
|
10 X road width
|
(Updated Table 9th March 2015 - no linkage to plot size - just focused on road width)
In all fairness the article on the DP did mention that
building proposals would now be considered based on fulfillment of stricter
parking, safety, environmental control and waste reduction norms. Track record
again suggests that developers in general fulfill norms only on paper and
reality speaks a very different story. In a City which shows little care to
give way to an ambulance or fire tender or any other emergency services;
ensuring adherence to norms in the taller structures can only happen if punishment
for non adherence is made a lot stricter. But again, money can buy anything as
evident in many high profile cases of the multitude of building accidents and fire covered in the press. I don't know how the City intends to build out its critical infrastructure of ensuring water, electricity, safety, roads without which increasing the population density, and more specifically vertically would indeed be a very "Silly" idea.
But keeping my skeptic nature aside; if the DP is a well thought out document with correct intent, then it could actually be a game changer in terms of how this City shapes and I shall stand corrected and if not then this City’s development plan is certainly “ill planned"
Honestly; there is no real mechanism to control land pricing on an island of what appears to be infinite demand. The higher the capacity of build allowed on a piece of land, higher the expected price of that land will be. Ultimately, it’s a matter of simple demand and supply economics. Hong Kong and Singapore face similar problems; but have set up norms for rewarding restricted social housing and critical infrastructure projects like schools and hospitals with a much higher FAR and/or ground coverage than given for free sale residential or commercial buildings. It’s an observation that slum dwellers rehabilitated in SRA towers generally occupied them for a statutory period then moved out to create a new ground level slum, while renting out the premises allocated to a family falling in the Low Income Group. Why so? Most say that they cannot adjust to living in apartments or don’t earn enough to pay for the monthly maintenance charges of utilities and facilities that they generally got for almost “free” in the slum. Relying on the average developer to come up with a high quality vertical slum alternative and/or making the owners of flats built on slum land subsidize the stay of their poor former slum neighbors is an idea which will certainly be labeled “Idiotic”.There are many others who seem to share my thoughts - some headlines:
DON'T TOUCH AAREY - BMC's ambitious devpt plan set to cut Aarey to 14% its present size
Denser, vertical growth spells misery for citizens
I would actually invite Mr. Arvind Kejriwal (the activist) to get his core team to study the DP keeping the Mumbai civic elections of 2017 in mind to figure out how this plan could be misused by those in power now and what safeguards need to be put in place to ensure that Mumbai becomes a world class international City.
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