By: Ravi Sinha
Track2Realty Exclusive: The redevelopment of a city depends on many local factors and cannot be replicated ad hoc. Mumbai has its own character and flavour and has to be developed according to local needs and infrastructure availability. The government in consultation with developers should work in redeveloping the city of Mumbai by improvising on infrastructure.
Diipesh Bhagtani, Executive Director, Jaycee Homes has a different take when he says Mumbai has a distinct identity of its own, and therefore, it is wise not to ape any other global city for redevelopment.
“Yes, Mumbai lags way behind in the redevelopment space when compared to other cities globally. A developer faces a lot of hurdles while undertaking redevelopment projects. Apart from the investments involved, many other issues tend to crop up during the course of redevelopment. A developer in Mumbai has to take the consent of at least 75% of members for the redevelopment of a building. Getting the consent of all the tenants is a cumbersome process but it is important; inevitably, there are many tenants who oppose redevelopment and take a legal route. This ultimately stalls the process for a very long time. Also, getting timely approvals is a major issue in Mumbai. a developer has to obtain about 50 odd permissions to get approval for the project. Nowhere across the world do developers face such issues. Therefore, Mumbai lags behind other global cities in terms of redevelopment,” says Bhagtani.
There is a general consensus that what Mumbai needs is a strong commitment to planning. Many of the case studies globally show that successful projects had well thought-out plans at their bases. The case studies reveal that one very successful strategy is the creation of strong economic development agency that has independence, power and financial resources necessary to move difficult projects through the development process.
Some key initiatives by the state government would go a long way in revitalizing the urban renewal challenge, particularly in context of Mumbai. This includes granting incentive FSI to developers for construction of LIG/MIG housing in lieu of their free-sale component; single-window and time bound disposal of Annexure-11 for slum redevelopment schemes; premium for fungible FSI under SRA projects should be lower compared to non-SRA projects and higher delegation of authority for fast track clearances to key authorities.
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