Hiranandani to build 3,000 affordable homes in Powai

After the Supreme Court, in March this year, refused to intervene, Hiranandani Developers on Thursday told the Bombay high court that they would follow its orders and build more than 3,000 tenements on 1.27 lakh square metres in Powai and hand them over to the government to sell at affordable rates.

After the Supreme Court, in March this year, refused to intervene, Hiranandani Developers on Thursday told the Bombay high court that they would follow its orders and build more than 3,000 tenements on 1.27 lakh square metres in Powai and hand them over to the government to sell at affordable rates.

HT Image

Acting on a bunch of public interest litigations, a division bench of chief justice Mohit Shah and justice Roshan Dalvi had on February 22 held that Hiranandani Developers were not entitled to carry out any further construction in the 230-acre Powai Area Development Scheme, where they had built several luxury residential towers.

They were told to construct tenements measuring 40 and 80 square metres on the land left over and hand them over to the state government at Rs 135 per square foot.

The high court had also restrained the developer from any further construction on available open space in the Powai scheme without its permission.

The developer had challenged the high court order in the apex court, but got no relief.

On Thursday, the counsel for Hiranandani Developers told the court that they were ready to comply with the February 22 order and that 1,511 tenements measuring 40 square metres and 1,593 tenements admeasuring 80 square metres could be built.

Counsel, however, urged the court to deduct nearly 60,000 square metres of area already used by the developer for commercial construction and bring down the area required for affordable housing to 1.27 lakh square metres.

Counsel for the MMRDA opposed the request stating the tripartite agreement (see box for details), which formed the basis for development of 230 acres in Powai, did not provide for any commercial construction, and as the developer had already committed breach, he should not be granted any further concession.

The judges, however, felt that the developer should be allowed to go ahead with construction of tenements first on 1.27 lakh square meters of land and posted the dispute about deduction of 60,000 square metres to be decided later on.