First bid made to redevelop a cluster

More than a month after the Maharashtra state government issued the final notification on the cluster redevelopment policy for buildings constructed prior to 1960 in the island city, the state housing department has received its first proposal under the new policy. On Tuesday, the state housing department received a proposal for redeveloping a 30-acre plot in the Kalbadevi-Chira Bazaar area, a plot that is three-quarters the size of Nariman Point. The proposal was submitted by the Remaking of Mumbai Housing Infrastructure and Finance Limited (RMHIF), a company headed by developer Lalit Gandhi. It details plans to demolish 360 three-storey and fourstorey buildings and replace them with 30 high-rise buildings. While the existing 8,000-odd tenants will be rehabilitated in 30-storey buildings, the developer proposes to construct 50-storey buildings for his saleable component.State housing secretary Sitaram Kunte said, “We received it only on Tuesday. We will have to examine it for details before taking any decision on forwarding it to the high-powered committee,” he said. Last month, the state government had finalised its cluster policy, under which any developer taking up the redevelopment of old buildings in an area over 1 acre in the island city will be granted a floor space index (FSI) of 4 or even higher depending on the density of population in the locality. The final policy gave developers an increased sale component in the project, equal to 55 per cent to 80 per cent of the area used for rehabilitating existing tenants. “We will be investing about Rs 700 crore in this project and we are expecting a turnover of Rs 7,000 crore. Our intention is to save the lives of thousands of people who live in old buildings in the island city,” said Lalit Gandhi. He said about 20 lakh sq ft will be his sale component in the project while another 25 lakh will be used for rehabilitating the tenants and creating low income group houses. “It will be 50 per cent residential and 50 per cent commercial,” he said. In November 2007, when the state government had invited expressions of interest for a pilot redevelopment project, the Remaking of Mumbai Federation was one of the nine developers who had applied for the scheme. Back then, they had proposed to take up a total area of 232 acres in the heart of the island city, much to the chagrin of heritage activists. Activists like AGNI convenor Gerson Da Cunha, historian Sharada Dwivedi, environmentalist Debi Goenka along with a few others had taken their protest to the government. The proposal has now been submitted with the written consent of about 74 per cent of the tenants. Urban Development principal secretary TC Benjamin, however, clarified that as per rules no proposal will get approval from the high-powered committee unless it has the consent of at least 70 per cent of the landlords. “The proposal doesn’t have any such consent from landlords,” he said.