The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s guidelines on “Special permissions to re-development projects in the Marine Drive precinct” that was recently filed in the form of an additional affidavit in the Supreme Court has met with opposition from Churchgate and Nariman Point residents. Apart from raising objections against the guidelines in a counter affidavit, also filed in the Supreme Court, members of the Federation of Churchgate Residents are now planning to file a Public Interest Litigation against the guidelines in the Bombay High Court.
According to the residents, the guidelines have been framed by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) without following orders of the Bombay High Court as well as other norms under the Development Control Regulations of 1991. The affidavit, filed late last month, states that instead of preparing final general guidelines for height of re-constructed buildings in excess of 24 metres in accordance with the DC regulations, 1991, the civic chief has prepared guidelines for special permission to re-development projects in Marine Drive precinct.
“The applications for re-construction should have been considered on a case-by-case basis. Instead, the municipal commissioner has drafted generic guidelines for all re-development projects. This is incomprehensible,” said Ashok Rao, the president of the Federation of Churchgate Residents.
Referring to Bombay High Court’s order in 2012, the affidavit states that “present guidelines are bound to lead to a skewed re-development destroying the homogeneity of the heritage character of the Marine Drive Precinct as it will open floodgates for re-development”.
The PIL will oppose the BMC guidelines in the Bombay High Court in order to prevent other buildings in the area from applying under the guidelines that were submitted to the apex court on June 22.
The affidavit also pointed out that the Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee’s (MHCC’s) approval of the guidelines in 2016 came after an earlier rejection of the guidelines the previous year. “The MHCC did a complete u-turn in its decision to endorse the current municipal commissioner’s guidelines even though there has been no change in the facts. The guidelines have been drafted without any data of the number of buildings in need of repairs in the Marine Drive precinct or any analysis of the impact on infrastructure post re-development,” he said.
In his affidavit, he added that there has been no consideration of alternative means to maintain the old buildings besides redevelopment in order to preserve the beauty of the heritage precinct.
Alleging that the guidelines have been drafted in a way so as to favour the Vasant Sagar building, residents said that the Marine Drive precinct has been nominated for a UNESCO heritage list and such guidelines may compromise the city’s nomination.
“While on one hand Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and the state government are pushing for the Marine Drive precinct to be declared as a UNESCO heritage site, the BMC has come up with guidelines that can damage the beauty and sanctity of the world’s most prominent and largest art deco heritage precinct. The BMC didn’t even conduct any public hearing before finalising such guidelines,” said Rao.
The issue had come up first in 2012, when former municipal commissioner, Subodh Kumar, had given permission to the owners of Vasant Sagar building to build up to 58 m in height, well beyond the norm for the rest of the precinct that is 24 m. The issue then reached the Bombay High Court, which cancelled permissions granted by the civic body. The case is now pending in the Supreme Court.
According to the new set of guidelines, municipal commisssioner Ajoy Mehta has recommended that the height of the the front row buildings of Marine Drive, which fall under the backbay zone, be raised from the existing limit of 24 m to 32 m while the height of row of buildings behind that be raised from 24 m to 58 m. Of the other two zones in Marine Drive, the draft guidelines propose that the height of the Gymkhana zone be increased from 11-14 m to 24 m and height of the Chowpatty zone be increased from 21 m to 32 m.
