PROPOSED CLUSTER DEVELOPMENT
On June 30th the State Govt issued a notification No Notice No. TPB 4307 / 2346 / CR-106 / 2008 / UD-11 to modify the existing Development Control Rules 33 (9) which deals with repairs and reconstruction of cessed buildings and urban renewal schemes. The proposed notification intends to use Cluster redevelopment in the island city for a scheme with a higher FSI of 4 or the FSI required for rehabilitation of existing tenants/occupiers plus incentive FSI whichever is more.
It is applicable to any scheme that has minimum of 4000sqmt whether its cessed building or are buildings belonging to Govt, Semi Govt and MCGM or buildings that are declared dangerous or injurious to health and also includes the slums areas. Hence a very large fabric of the island city comes under this preview. The distinct areas that will be effected directly would be the well know precincts with heritage character like the Fort Precinct, Marine Drive, Bhuleshwar, Opera House, Gamdevi, CP tank or Banganga. This is on account that the proposed cluster redevelopment with incentive of higher FSI would tempt even the moderate condition building to undergo redevelopment in the cluster and thereby we would be loosing charm and character of these area which could have been conserved otherwise.
Objections and Suggestions were invited from citizens to this proposal till 30th July 2008.As much we care for heritage, we (conservationists) are equally aware that the quality of life is as important if not more important than heritage. But rather than going to root cause of the problem as to why our heritage is being neglected we are trying to advocate a blanket formula with Cluster Development without a proper discussion or debate amongst concerned professionals (pro and anti) which is essential to understand view points and concerns of each side.
To hear that heritage precincts and the entire island city with slums are clubbed together for redevelopment we are degrading our heritage equivalent to slums and the new development that we would get would be nothing another larger vertical slum soon as high rises 20-30 mts are permissible with a 4 mt open space between them. This is on account that many modern buildings i.e., as young as 1970s and 80s are already becoming dilapidated or are in poor condition due to lack of maintenance and going for redevelopment in suburbs in time span of 30 40 years. Where as our heritage precincts are listed if they are older than 50 years and many of them are century old and in fair or good condition due to the robust materials used.
It is only the lack of maintenance, overuse, misuse of these structures that problems start. Hence we recommend that good maintenance and right repairs should be mandatory which can happen by experimenting with diluting the RENT CONTROL ACT from the listed heritage buildings to begin with. This is a minuscule proportion of few hundred buildings in large lakhs of tenanted buildings. It is obvious that market value of the properties would go up which would be a win-win situation for all. This will help in preserving and maintaining our heritage rather demolishing all and leaving a building or two as relic of past as seen in Singapore. Mumbai is on the tourist map for its glorious heritage and not to see the vertical high rises.
Till the time rent control act cannot be diluted for heritage buildings it would ideal to have a separate wing of MHADA that is trained to conserve a heritage structure and the government should introduce a higher heritage cess to all new development of that area or island city and create a special fund to look after the poor condition heritage cessed buildings.
Heritage precincts can be treated as SPECIAL DEVELOPMENT AREA and a more sensitive development patterns can be worked out after understanding the complex matrix of these areas socially and culturally rather than seeing it only from ECONOMIC point of view as proposed by the state government for cluster development
Amendment to DCR 33(7) in 1999 diluted the heritage jurisdiction of Grade III cess buildings for redevelopment which forms the main chunk of the list and this if implemented would be the end of the heritage movement of Mumbai, which it proudly boasts to be the first in the country.
History of heritage legislation throughout the world (ie UNESCO Charters) shows that in the early 19th century the protection was to the monuments only and then this was increased to the enclosure of the monuments and then to its immediate surrounding and access of then this was stretched to views and vistas and now cultural landscape and cluster nomination is being spoken of. We on the contrary going exactly the reverse as these heritage precincts are the grain of our fabric as a result of which our landmarks stands out. If the grain tends to become landmark with FSI of 4 or 9 then where would we see our Neo Gothic silhouette of our city which was acclaimed by historians then as the finest city in the East of Suez. It will be a shame if UNESCO takes back the World Heritage Status Tag from CST seeing the present trends.
If one sees the new skyline of Girgaum area even without Cluster Development viz a viz the density model of Mumbai city as shown in Biennale exhibition of Cities Of World at Venice in 2006. You can see that densities of New York & Tokyo are evenly distributed and are less than half of Mumbai in some areas. It is city like Cairo which follow the Mumbai pattern but they have at-least have sorted their traffic problems first. With the Proposed Cluster Development proposed by our Urban Development raises fundamentally important questions leaving apart heritage these area a) what incase of natural disasters! Where do we have opens paces where people can be evacuated temporarily and b) What happens to already fragile century old infrastructure can it cope with the new development.
Having restored few heritage buildings in CP tank I can tell you that many of these buildings are the very intelligent buildings very climate and culture conscious, par excellence in their detail and ornamentation and its usage is woven so very carefully in the social and cultural life. These would be erased with cluster development which would tempt a good condition heritage building to be pulled down in the name of DEVELOPMENT and that would be a very heavy price to pay which only history would be a witness.
We dont oppose development for need and are always for sensitive development but development for Greed in pretext of solving problems is what we are objecting. With the Mills, grade III cess heritage structures gone and grade I buildings like Crawford Market waiting for redevelopment with high FSI we would have lost the Mumbai that we inherited.
I sincerely request that the State Government as Custodians of our city to delete from the cluster development proposal the listed buildings and precincts
Vikas Dilawari
Conservation Architect
HOD of Conservation Dept, KRVIA