Bldrs must set aside corpus for redeveloped houses
Mumbai: Builders who undertake redevelopment of a cluster of old buildings in the city will have to create a corpus to cover maintenance costs of the new buildings for the first 10 years. With residents of redeveloped old buildings often finding themselves unable to pay for the maintenance of their new highrise flats, the state government will make such a corpus mandatory, as part of amendments to the Development Control Rules that is in the pipeline.
On Thursday, chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh chaired a meeting of MLAs and officials to discuss the proposed amendments to DCR 33/9, which concerns the redevelopment of over 16,000 cessed buildings in the city. In its housing policy in 2006, the state government had proposed a cluster approach to the redevelopment of these old buildings, many of which are in dilapidated condition, which would involve redeveloping a group of buildings and upgrading the local infrastructure, instead of redeveloping one building at a time. Last year, the government invited suggestions for a pilot project and is now scrutinising the entries.
While the state government had declared in 2006 that it would give an FSI of 4 for such cluster redevelopment projects, Deshmukh on Thursday said even projects in Coastal Regulatory Zone II areas could be given the higher FSI, subject to the approval of the Union ministry of environment and forests.
The state had initially proposed that the area under consideration be at least 4,000 sq m for cluster redevelopment to be undertaken. However, several MLAs wanted this to be raised, saying that a larger layout was necessary. Deshmukh said that the state government has now proposed that a minimum layout of 10,000 sq m be looked at, but a final decision was yet to be taken. Several MLAs have also asked for larger flats to be given to the the residents, but no final decision has been taken yet.
The state is also yet to take a decision on the cut-off date for residents to be eligible for the scheme. At present, the cut-off date for tenants is June 13, 1996, while that for slumdwellers is January 1, 1995. The MLAs asked for the cut-off date for both groups to be extended to January 1, 2000.