Mumbai Coastal body okays cessed buildings’ redevelopment

Lifting the eight-monthlong embargo on redevelopment of dilapidated and unsafe cessed buildings in the city, the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) has instructed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to start processing proposals for redevelopment of such buildings.

Lifting the eight-monthlong embargo on redevelopment of dilapidated and unsafe cessed buildings in the city, the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) has instructed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to start processing proposals for redevelopment of such buildings.

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“MCZMA has already communicated to the civic commissioner to start processing proposals for redevelopment of dilapidated and unsafe cessed buildings,” MCZMA counsel Sharmila Deshmukh informed the Bombay high court on Wednesday.

The lawyer was responding to a petition filed by Property Redevelopers’ Association challenging the MCZMA’s November 2012 communication to the BMC commissioner to temporarily put on hold proposals for redevelopment of cessed buildings.

According to the association’s counsel Milind Sathe, after its 78th meeting held on November 3, 2012, the MCZMA issued this communication because of confusion created by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) by wrongly interpreting provisions of the Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ) notification of 2011 stating the benefit of extra FSI would be available only to cessed buildings that were recognised by authorities as dilapidated and unsafe.

The senior advocate pointed out that there is now a complete embargo on proposals for redevelopment of cessed buildings

Deshmukh responded stating that the MCZMA had already communicated to the BMC chief to start processing proposals for redevelopment.

Apart from the MCZMA’s embargo, the petitioner association has also taken objection to the wrong interpretation of the provision, contending it seeks to exclude proposals where construction has started.