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In Mumbai: Ahead of polls, state increases floor size for revamped Mhada buildings
In a move that could bring relief to more than 2 lakh families across the city just ahead of the civic polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government on Thursday decided to relax the terms for the redevelopment of old buildings on Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) layouts.
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In a move that could bring relief to more than 2 lakh families across the city just ahead of the civic polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government on Thursday decided to relax the terms for the redevelopment of old buildings on Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) layouts.
The government has also decided to increase the size of the tenements for such buildings to 376 square feet from the existing 300 square feet . In another development, the state government has planned to divide the Dharavi redevelopment project into 12 smaller sectors from the existing 5 sectors.
If the developer uses fungible floor space index, which is 35% of the total size of the plot, the size of the tenement will increase to 507 square feet, said a senior official from the urban development department.
The developer also has to pay a premium based on surplus built-up area after rehabilitation of existing occupants. The premium will vary from 40% to 95 %, based on the size of the plot and the category of the housing stock, the officials added.
As per a draft notification issued on Thursday, layouts with an area of 2,000 square metre and below will not have to surrender a part of the tenement in the redeveloped buildings to the government agency while redeveloping old structures. Layouts with an area of 4,000 square metre and above will have to give a housing stock to Mhada but they will get additional floor space index (FSI) for the same. The housing stock with the new FSI will be bought back by Mhada by paying a construction cost to the developer. This will make redevelopment profitable for the developers and could put the projects back on track. Under earlier rules, all buildings were supposed to surrender part of the newly built tenements to Mhada.
The move will pave way for the redevelopment of 2.25 lakh tenements situated on 104 Mhada layouts, that were stuck for years because of the old rules of sharing housing stock with the government agency. The condition was introduced by Mhada to increase its affordable housing stock.
The state urban development department headed by the chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday issued a draft notification to this effect. This will be put in public domain for a month for suggestions and objections.
State housing minister Prakash Mehta said that the decision will pave way for redevelopment of old buildings situated on Mhada layouts. “We are expecting to create 1 lakh affordable housing stock with this decision,” he said.
Meanwhile, after failing multiple times, the state government has now decided to divide the Dharavi redevelopment project into 12 small sectors. The idea is to attract developers. Mehta said a proposal cleared by a panel will be given a nod soon.
So far, four bids were called but did not receive a single application. Dharavi Redevelopment project authority, the nodal agency, had earlier divided it into five sectors, calling bids for four. Mhada took up the fifth sector to redevelop it.
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