Marve’s road abutting buildings to be halved

Once this is done, the building will be restored and re-occupied again. This retrofitting comes at zero cost for the civic body as the cost will be borne by the tenants. “The tenants appointed a private consultant. They will bear the cost but those whose portion abuts the road will get the monetary benefit,” said a civic official

Mumbai: Two buildings coming in the way of road expansion work at SV Road in Marve will be partly demolished from the frontal side portion for abutting the road line. In order to execute the work, a structural consultant has been roped in to devise a method demolition.

Marve’s road abutting buildings to be halved

The work will affect one residential and seven commercial structures.

There are two buildings on SV Road Marve Road junction -a one-storey structure named Dabeli House, which is more than 100 years old. It has one commercial and one residential tenant. The other structure is a 60-year-old two-storey Shevanti Villa on Ramchandra Road junction which has six commercial tenants. Both these buildings will be halved for road widening work.

Once this is done, the building will be restored and re-occupied again. This retrofitting comes at zero cost for the civic body as the cost will be borne by the tenants. “The tenants appointed a private consultant. They will bear the cost but those whose portion abuts the road will get the monetary benefit,” said a civic official.

“The entire buildings are not on the road. Only half of each building measuring 3-4 metres abuts the road, while the rest of the building is on the inside. We therefore asked for documents and checked if these structures were made before 1962 or before 2000.” The tenants were compensated accordingly as per BMC’s bottleneck policy for road widening.

When queried about how the buildings will be halved, Dighavkar said all columns are identified and the building will be propped and protected.

“It will be vertically cut and halved for which we have compensated the tenants of commercial structures as per our policy and they have vacated Shevanti Villa. The building which has one residential flat on the first floor agreed with their landlord to be compensated during redevelopment,” said Dighavkar.

The affected residential tenant at Dabeli House has agreed to get a flat from the landlord when the building goes for redevelopment. At Shevanti Villa, 200feet space will be axed and 2.5metre will be cut which is coming in the way of the road line. The remaining 40metre of Shevanti Villa is behind the road line.

Both residential and commercial tenants asked for a certificate attesting to the area of space they have lost during road widening so that they can be compensated during redevelopment.

Dighavkar said usually during road widening the affected parties are mostly commercial structures.

“So we started offering compensation by multiplying the area with the ready reckoner rate. The commercial structures get good financial compensation,” he said.

The tenants appointed a structural consultant, who will demolish the frontal portion of the building without affecting the structural stability of the buildings. The rest of the building will be safe and only the portion facing the road will go.

This peculiar method which is common among structures abutting major arterial roads is called “Retrofitting of buildings” done in consultation with structural engineers.

A civic engineer from P north ward further explained, “There will be no danger after the building is halved as it will be strengthened with columns and restored back. This method is called retrofitting of buildings,” he said.

Currently, all commercial structures are occupied in both buildings, and they will be vacated. Shevanti Villa will have to bear ₹50 lakh for halving their building, retrofitting and restoring their building. Dabeli House will have to bear ₹2-3 lakh cost for the same work, said the civic official.