Uddhav Thackerays’ new Bandra home hits BMC hurdle

Uddhav Thackeray’s new house near Matoshri in Bandra’s Kala Nagar. The new plot faces the Bandra Kurla Complex Road. Photos by Dilip Kagda.

The SHIV SENA-controlled Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has thrown a spanner in party president Uddhav Thackeray’s plan to build a new home for his family in Bandra. While the Thackerays had sought permission to utilise transferable development rights (TDR) for additional construction in the new building, the civic body’s building proposals department is learnt to have turned down the proposal.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis may now hold the key to completion of Thackeray’s home project, with sources confirming the matter has been referred to the urban development (UD) department led by him. Ties between the Shiv Sena and the BJP have been frosty in recent times.

In October 2016, Uddhav Thackeray and wife Rashmi acquired a 5,200 square feet property right across their current residential address, Matoshree, in Bandra East’s Kalanagar Cooperative Housing Society. While the Thackerays plan to construct an eight-storey building with a basement, stilt, and seven upper floors, the construction of the upper floors has run into rough weather with the civic administration declining the permission for loading TDR on the property.

The TDR is a development tool that allows land developers additional construction rights over and above the permissible floor space level in redevelopment projects. It is usually generated when a developer or a land owner surrenders land reserved for public amenities in the form of buildable space, or rehouses slum-dwellers or project-affected people free of cost. The generated TDR can be traded privately for utilisation on another plot.

Official papers show that the Thackerays had in May this year already purchased TDR worth 2,617 sq ft from a slum developer in Lower Parel. But there is now uncertainty on whether this can be utilised to build the extra floors for Thackeray’s new home, according to the sources.

The proposal submitted by the Thackerays to the BMC shows they have plans to build two triplex apartments in the new building. Considering the fact that TDR utilisation would be permitted on the property, the Thackerays have planned to construct up to 10,500 sq ft in all. The family has roped in noted architecture firm Talati and Panthaky Associated Private Limited to design the building.

While the construction work had begun last November, and has already progressed till the fifth floor, the building proposals department has now ruled that the “utilisation of the TDR was not permissible on the plot”. The department is going by the civic administration’s new guidelines issued on August 23, 2017, regarding the utilisation of TDR.

The guidelines had followed a notification issued by the UD department on November 16, 2016, linking the utilisation of the TDR to the width of the road in front of the plots concerned. The notification restricts the loading of TDR on plots abutting an existing road that is at least 9 metre wide and is marked under the relevant provisions of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act.

A circular issued by Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta, on August 23, 2017, disallowed utilisation of TDR on plots having access or fronting from private layout roads, internal roads, or the ones having right of way from a private access, among others. In other words, plots have to be directly accessible from a public street or a municipal road to avail the additional construction right.

The trouble for the Thackeray family is that their plot is served by a 9.15-metre-wide internal road planned within the private layout of the Kalanagar society. The building proposals department has declined utilisation of the TDR ruling that this can neither be termed a public street nor a municipal road.

On September 16, however, Ajoy Mehta wrote to Principal Secretary (UD-1) Dr Nitin Kareer, seeking clarification on whether TDR could be permitted on such private roads too. “The municipal corporation is receiving proposals for the utilisation of TDR for development/redevelopment of buildings abutting/fronting existing layout roads, private roads, right of ways, existing non municipal roads, and pre-merger layout roads, among others. In view of the above, the Principal Secretary (Urban Development-1) is requested to issue a clarification regarding allowing the utilisation of TDR on roads other than municipal roads/public roads,” the letter reads.

Incidentally, Fadnavis has already stepped in to help the Thackerays’ new construction once. In January 2016, Fadnavis had directed authorities at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, which he heads, to allow “emergency” access to the plot from the 45-metre-wide Bandra Kurla Complex. The MMRDA later allowed the Thackerays to use a 6-m-wide temporary access to the BKC road. Papers show the architects for the Thackerays had sought access to an “emergency exit” on grounds that Matoshree was located in the high security zone.

Sources said a couple of Mumbai-based BJP MLAs — Parag Alavani and Yogesh Sagar — too had approached the CMO demanding revision of the civic guidelines. The Practicing Engineers, Town Planners, and Architects Association (PEATA) has also written to the civic body questioning the “insistence on the status of the road” for TDR. Senior building proposal department engineers are however wary of instances of FSI imbalance if this is withdrawn entirely.

Despite attempts, the Thackerays remained unavailable for comment.

Matoshree 2.0

Uddhav Thackeray’s new house is being constructed on a plot owned by the Kalanagar Cooperative Housing Society. Documents show that it had been originally leased to an artist, Kattingeri Krishna Hebbar. The plot was transferred to Hebbar’s wife Susheela upon his death in 1996, and later came their children Rekha Rao, Rajani Prasanna and Ranna Hebbar following Susheela’s death in 2006. In 2007, the three entered into a development rights agreement with Malad-based building firm Planatium Infrastructure Private Limited, wherein they divested their stakes in the property for an agreed sum.

While the firm initially applied for permission to construct a building on the property, the Thackerays later took it over. The Kalanagar CHS has also issued the Thackeray an NOC to acquire and redevelop the plot, while the suburban collector’s office too has recognised the transfer.