E-Paper
Thane set to get another urban sub-cluster
Nearly three months after the in-principle approval of two sub-clusters in Kisannagar, the town planning department of the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) has
Nearly three months after the in-principle approval of two sub-clusters in Kisannagar, the town planning department of the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) has confirmed that another sub-cluster in Hajuri has received an in-principle approval to give Letter of Intent (LOI) to the private agency that showed interest in the development of this sub-cluster.
The Hajuri Urban Renewal Scheme (URS) or Urban Renewal Plan (URP) is also financially viable as opposed to the Kisannagar sub-cluster wherein the TMC will have to money from its coffers. However, for this project, TMC will get 300 new flats free of cost from the developer. Hajuri URS, which comprises 1,609 houses at present, will have over 2,600 homes once it is developed.
TMC got in-principal approval by the high-power committee for two sub-clusters in Kisannagar area in September 2019.
An officer from TMC’s town planning department said, “We have got in-principal approval to give LOI to the agency who has expressed interest in developing this sub-cluster on Thursday (January 2). This sub-cluster includes Garodia co-operative housing society, Rajtara society, MIDC and government land encroached by slums. There are over 1,384 illegal homes and 225 legal homes in this cluster. It is now the responsibility of the agency to get the titles of the government and private land transferred in its name so that we can give them further permission for development.”
He added the process of seeking consent from land owners has begun. The officer informed that the total area of the URS is 42,575.83 sq metre and the permissible built-up area for the redevelopment will be 1,70,303.32 sq m.
“The developer will have to provide rehabilitation on 73,970 sq m area while he is permitted to sell equal amount of area for his profit. The remaining area will be transferred to TMC to be used to rehabilitate Project Affected People (PAP). As per our calculation, we will get around 300 free flats to be used as transit camps. Thus this cluster is financially viable as we do not have to spend any money and in fact will be gaining free homes.”
The official added that the civic body will be providing rehabilitation in rental homes to the 1,384 illegal tenants while the developer will have to provide rehabilitation for the legal tenants.
Mayuresh Bhadsavle, urban policy maker from Thane, said, the cluster development scheme might not be a success. He said, “The developers will not find the cluster scheme lucrative as a major part of the homes will be given for rehabilitation. The real estate market is already facing a slowdown, so the developers might not get any returns in this.”
