Over 600 redevelopment projects in the island city,stuck at various levels of approval,would benefit from the municipal corporations latest move to waive the premium to be charged on additional FSI offered to residential projects. The beneficiaries include both standalone cessed structures and clusters of old buildings in prime areas of South Mumbai. Just a month back,the civic body had proposed an amendment to the Development Control Rules (DCR). Accordingly 100 per cent premium is to be levied on areas such as individual terraces,balconies,flower beds and other ornamental projections that were until now not included in the floor space index (FSI) computations. The area of these additional spaces was also capped at 25 per cent of the total area of the apartment. However,last Thursday the corporation decided to not levy the premium in case of redevelopment of cessed structures,cluster redevelopment,slums and MHADA buildings. A final call would be taken by the state government. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has extended this premium waiver only in case of the buildings for rehabilitating the tenants and not the salable component of the developers. According to builder Pujit Aggarwal from Orbit Corporation,the spokesperson of Property Redevelopers Association (PRA),ever since the municipal commissioner has proposed the new laws,about 600-700 proposals for redevelopment of cessed buildings are pending at various levels for some clarity. As per rules,tenants of old cessed buildings are to be rehoused in 300 sq ft new houses,but developers often offer them larger areas by way of including these extra FSI areas. When the new rules were introduced a month ago,it became financially unviable for developers to purchase the extra FSI at a 100 per cent premium since they anyway are providing the rehabilitation houses free of cost to the tenants, said Aggarwal. Tenants on their part,are not willing to settle for 300 sq ft homes as they were earlier promised bigger apartments leading to a deadlock in case of all such projects in the last one month. Cessed buildings are tenanted properties constructed prior to 1960 and are mostly in a state of neglect due to the frozen rentals. According to the PRA,there are about 14,883 old and dilapidated cessed properties housing over two lakh tenants. Sandip Isore,a Redevelopment Regulatory Specialist for PRA said,Over the last one month since the new rules were proposed,we have received an endless stream of enquiries from affected tenants. He added that there is no harm in limiting the area of the concessional FSI to 25 per cent as it prevent misuse but it is not possible for developers to purchase the extra areas at a premium. The PRA is now also appealing the BMC for removal of a clause in the proposed DCR amendment that requires projects to leave an open space of 2.5 m on all sides in addition to a 6 m space on one side. According to them,75 per cent of the projects are on plots less than 1000 sq m or even smaller in pockets such as Parel,Lalbaugh,Gamdevi,Kalbadevi,Grant Road,Bhendi Bazaar and Masjid Bunder. Many of these are smaller than 300 sq m. The BMC needs to find a middle way so that projects on smaller plots become viable without compromising on the safety angle, said Isore.
