Track2Realty Exclusive: While the concept is being touted as the next big thing for the realty industry, there are both pros and cons to be weighed with integrated townships. There, of course, is the flip side too. Long gestation periods for these projects to take off and reluctance on the part of people to move to an isolated location are challenging from the developers perspective.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Neeraj Bansal, Partner-Real Estate & Construction at KPMG India says although more and more developers are rooting for integrated township projects, the project execution has been disappointing owing to multiple factors. The primary among them is delays in obtaining approvals from various departments.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Many urban planners maintain the genesis of the model integrated township in India lies in Jamshedpur, developed by the TATA Group. However, modern realty analysts maintain no one understands the grandeur of an integrated township better than Jaypee Group due to its locational vantage point and large tract of land bank. The infrastructure major has to its credit state-of-the-art township along the Yamuna Expressway.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Mumbai, while being known for its ability to provide a livelihood for one and all, is infamous for having the highest population density in the world: close to 30,000 people per square kilometer, about three times that of Delhi.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Not all large developments can however, be called townships. A development comprising only budget apartments is an incomplete township. So is one that has only luxury housing. It is essential for a township to have an inclusive character.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Conceptually across the world integrated townships have gone beyond a well-planned housing complex that meets daily needs of its residents to a functioning city that aims at self reliance. The townships being built today have a balanced configuration of residential and commercial spaces intermingled with well-developed infrastructure and recreational amenities besides the green and open spaces.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Integrated township in the Indian context is a baby that everyone was expecting with their own set of expectations. And hence, within a decade the term was so over-used that it lost its relevance. Any and every mixed land use was projected as an integrated township and it often lacked the basic DNA of affordability, convenience, lifestyle and walk-to-work. As a matter of fact, Trck2Realty noted township projects were also conceptualized by many as safe investments in India at a time when funds were on the look out to deploy and developers needed more projects in the kitty to bag that.
Track2Realty Exclusive: What Indian realty needs is holistic reforms and for that what is needed is change in mindset. We wonder why every person in office doesn’t realise that his indecisiveness hurts interest of the country. Why authorities are trying to take a pro-publicity and anti-development stand whereby nobody gains?
Track2Realty: Mumbai-Pune developer Kumar Urban Development Limited (KUL) has launched second phase of its integrated eco-friendly township, KUL Ecoloch, in Mahalunge, behind Balewadi Stadium, Pune.
Track2Realty-Agencies: Haryana government has notified the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas (Amendment) Act, 2013 to regulate land use in the state.