India is witnessing an upsurge in the demand for homes in well-developed townships. This is due to the challenges that urbanisation has placed on the quality of life in the cramped city centres and suburbs. Many of India’s metros and other large cities have seen an unprecedented level of saturation, and integrated townships seem to be the logical solution to home seekers.
Township developments, which are usually developed on the outskirt of our cities, provide not only affordability but the kind of convenient, healthy and secured lifestyle. In the midst, or rather, on the fringes of the unfolding urban chaos, integrated townships provide the lifestyle that urban dwellers yearn for. Townships provide every quintessential need of modern living, including schools, departmental stores and shopping malls, hospitals and places for leisure and entertainment, all within a convenient distance.
One of the USPs of integrated townships is the availability of generous open spaces, which one cannot hope for living in an overpopulated city where hardly any spaces are left undeveloped.
The advantage of integrated townships is that they offer the residents open spaces in the form of parks and gardens, jogging tracks, children’s playgrounds and a lot more.
This characteristic of open spaces is about a lot more than just aesthetics and brings a number of social and economic benefits, as well.
The benefits
There are many benefits of having abundant open spaces in a residential area apart from the bracing, healthy lifestyle they provide. Such an environment is ideal for ground water recharging, rainwater harvesting, and space for the setting up solar panels to generate uninterrupted sustainable energy. Green spaces also enable healthy living as elders and children live more vigorous lives in healthy surroundings.
All these factors result in the exclusive and highly desirable characteristics of integrated townships.
Market value
A number of studies reveal that urban dwellers are attracted to residential areas and projects that have large areas dedicated to open spaces — spaces where no development will occur at any point in the future. Home buyers want alternatives that allow them to get closer to nature.
The option to live in a greener environment and provide their family a happier lifestyle involves a premium that people are more than willing to pay.
In an integrated township, flats that have access to open ventilation and possibly face any recreational open space are sought after. The property values also tend to differ from floor to floor, with lower floors carrying a premium over the ones above them. For those who prefer duplexes or bungalows, the distance from open recreational spaces will determine, more or less, how much people are willing to pay. Generally, a community with a larger number of open spaces or recreational amenities is seen to have higher property values.
Perfect planning
This is why not all integrated townships are created equally. Expert planning at the design stage can ensure that all residential buildings have equal access to green open spaces. Lack of such planning will create gross variations in the demand for and therefore pricing of residential spaces in different buildings and even within the same building. If a township is planned thoroughly, keeping in mind that every resident expects to have reasonable access to green open spaces, then the entire project is guaranteed to succeed.
Unfortunately, some of the earliest integrated townships in our cities were not planned with this all-important factor in mind. Contemporary township developers have the advantage of informed hindsight on the mistakes which earlier players committed, and the opportunity to avoid them.
What this means for families who are determined to make the township lifestyle their own is that careful evaluation is of utmost importance. Even in the early construction stages, intending buyers can identify whether or not an integrated township provides an acceptable and desirable level of access to open spaces by studying the project layout. As in all areas of the real estate market, knowledge is the key to making the right choices and ensuring that one’s property investment brings with it the hoped-for returns — both in terms of investment value and in lifestyle benefits.
The writer is Managing Director – Pride Group
