The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) may have included open spaces of 42 hectares in the Development Plan 2034, but acquiring the land will not be an easy task.
The open spaces demarcated in the 1991 DP had remained on paper when the BMC failed to acquire the land. As many spaces are encroached upon by slums, the BMC will either have to create a lucrative rehabilitation scheme or pay the full amount to acquire them.
Officials have said that 124 open spaces from the 1991 DP that were omitted in the first draft of the new DP have been included in the final draft. Morevoer, reservations suggested by the planning committee or BMC general assembly on open spaces have been deleted, thus retaining the spaces. Although this brings the area under open spaces to 10% of the total, experts are concerned about the logistics.
33% formula
The civic body will have to allow rehabilitation schemes for slum dwellers, in which the developer will construct on two-thirds of the plot. The developer will be allowed additional FSI to make the project viable. In turn, he will have to develop and hand over 33% as open space to the BMC.
Nayana Kathpaliya of the NGO NAGAR said, “The SRA Act had a similar provision. We challenged it in court, which stayed it in 2002. If a provision is being made in the DP, we will have to take a legal opinion.”
Environmentalist Stalin D. says the 33% formula for affordable housing never works. “I have an example where a builder was allowed to build four luxury towers in Bhandup in return for one small apartment in the name of affordable housing.” Experts also pointed at the number of amenity spaces created behind a plot or within a housing society compound in the name of public open space.
An official from the DP Department said, “We can also acquire the entire space on full payment as per the Land Acquisition Act. In that case, the slum dwellers will be rehabilitated on plots earmarked for rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R).”
Payment problem
However, payment has never been a viable option for BMC by its own admission. Implementing the DP will cost the BMC ₹14 lakh crore in cost of land acquisition, construction of DP roads and amenity buildings, and development of open spaces. It relies heavily on TDR or accommodation reservation instead.
Besides, some plots, whose reservation was changed in 2015, have been included in the DP again. “The easiest ones will be acquired first and the rest gradually,” said another official.
