By: Babulal Varma, MD, Omkar Realtors & Developers
Track2Realty Exclusive: The case of Japan is one of the most inspiring and creative as conviction of betterment leads the policy and practical solution formulations. Gate Tower Building is a 16-story office building in Fukushima-ku, Osaka, Japan. And what makes it notable is the highway that passes through the 5th-7th floors of this building. The highway is part of the Hanshin Expressway, a network (239.3 km) of expressways surrounding Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto, Japan. The Gate Tower Building is Japan’s first building to have a highway pass through it. And it had been nicknamed “beehive” referring to its appearance as a “bustling place”.
The Umeda Exit of the Ikeda Route of the Hanshin Expressway system passes through this building. The expressway is the tenant of these floors. The elevator doesn’t stop on floor 5th-7th; floor 4 being followed by floor 8. These floors consist of elevators, stairways, machinery and other stuff.
The highway passes through the building as a bridge, held up by supports next to the building, making no contact with the building itself. The building has a double core construction, with a circular cross section and special care is taken by providing surrounded structure to the highway to protect the building from noise and vibration.
Generally expressways are built underground, and passing through a building is an extremely rare occasion. It dates back to 1983, when the redevelopment of this area was decided upon, “building permits were refused because the highway was already being planned to be built over this land. The property rights’ holders refused to give up and negotiated with the Hanshin Expressway Corporation for approximately five years to reach the current solution.”
What Mumbai needs is a strong commitment to planning. Many of the case studies 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.
