With a shortfall of 1.25 million urban housing dwellings in Tamil Nadu alone, the demand-supply gap in urban housing needs to drastically improve, according to CREDAI Chennai’s Real Estate Vision 2030 report, which was done in association with Savills. The report mentioned that locations such as Poonamallee, GST, OMR, and Tamil Nadu Housing Board land parcels in Foreshore Estate can be developed as housing clusters.
According to the report, redeveloping government assets such as dilapidated buildings and developing vacant land parcels have the potential to be built as a mix of residential, commercial, and retail real estate. Under the ARHC scheme of the Central government, these can be built and rented out for 25 years to the urban poor and migrant workers. Decongestion of the central areas of Chennai is another high priority that the government needs to consider. Incidentally, over 2000 acres of SEZ land are available in the State that fall within the ambit of center-sponsored ARHC schemes.
The report highlighted that the Central Chennai decongestion plan holds a lot of opportunities. CBD (Central Business District) like Guindy and Mount Poonamallee are ideal destinations and can be developed on the lines of Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai and Cyber City in Gurugram.
Another key factor mentioned in the report was on the industrial side. It said, “The State is encouraging industrial projects to develop housing and hostel facilities for employees within a 5-km radius of their work; this is bound to increase the housing demand. There are over 2.2 million people already employed by over 45,000 factories in the State, and the ideal locations to build this are along the 62 km ORR, North Chennai, and Sriperumbudur.”
“CREDAI Chennai recommends a subsidy in electrical tariffs and offers tax benefits on the infrastructure creation of cold storage logistics hubs,” Sivagurunathan, president of CREDAI Chennai, said. According to the study, the announcement of mega food parks at Theni, Villupuram, and Trichy and investments to the tune of ₹380 crore on 450 acres of land parcels are bound to increase the State’s share of the cold storage facility from 1% to a much enviable percentage in the coming years.
