Scrap populist concept of free housing: experts to civic chief

The letter reiterates that the populist concept of free housing should be scrapped to make way for inclusive housing both on ownership and rental basis. It suggests that the only way to achieve the twin goals of controlling speculative pricing of houses and creating more affordable housing is by making it mandatory for all new and redevelopment projects to reserve 50 per cent of their constructed space for smaller sized affordable apartments. MHADA could then purchase these from developers at the construction cost without paying the land cost.

The developers could be more than compensated for the land cost by being given an unlimited FSI. As against the current practice where developers try to maximise their profits and make up for land cost by constructing bigger sized apartments,they could be granted a higher FSI if they hand over half the apartments to MHADA.

According to Pankaj Joshi,executive director of UDRI,several countries have such a form-based FSI where higher FSI is granted based on factors such as larger plot size,open spaces,density cap,setback and access way width. “FSI has degenerated from being a planning tool to a commodity. This is the best way to decommodify FSI and also ensure that the city gets an adequate stock of affordable housing,” said Joshi.

Quoting a recent study that pegs the slum population of Mumbai at 6.5 million or 51per cent of the city’s total population,the letter estimates a housing shortfall of 15 lakh units. Considering that the developable land in Mumbai has reduced to less than 10 sq km,the report states that the government should take a realistic view about opening up No Development Zones,which currently are 41 per cent of the total 438 sq km area of the city.

Opposing free housing,the expert group suggested that the government should reserve land occupied by slums for housing and ensure security of tenure of slumdwellers. “Instead of allowing commercial development by builders on such land,slumdwellers should be allowed to construct houses through loan from financial institutions,” said Joshi.

The UDRI has also formed expert groups for transportation,water,governance,environment,urban form,health,education and finance. Their suggestions will be sent to the BMC,which recently appointed Syndicate Group SCE,a Bangalore-based French consortium,to make the new DP.