MMRDA to have control over Metro land in city

 

Senior MMRDA officials argued that the newly acquired status would help in expediting work for completion of the Metro rail routes. (File Photo)

After leaving out land owned by the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) from the city’s development plan, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has now sanctioned a proposal granting the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) the status of a special planning authority (SPA) for five upcoming Metro rail alignments and land required for building temporary and permanent Metro casting yards.

The SPA tag to the MMRDA will give it unhindered powers to draw up land use plans, sanction building and development plans on their own for these belts without requiring to approach the civic body for permissions. Once the Urban Development department formally notifies the special planning zones in a few days, these pockets would also be withdrawn from the civic body’s new development plan just like the MbPT lands, confirmed sources. Construction of commercial and office spaces and development of station areas would now be governed by the MMRDA, which the CM himself heads.

According to information, the MMRDA has newly been granted the SPA status for lands required to build Metro rail stations, casting yards, and rail tracks for the Metro 2B (DN Nagar-Mandale), Metro 4 (Wadala-Ghatkopar-Mulund-Thane-Kasarvadavli), Metro 5 (Thane-Bhiwandi-Kalyan), Metro 6 (Swami Samarth Nagar-Vikhroli), and Metro 9 (Mira Bhayander-Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport) rail routes.

Fadnavis had set the ball rolling in this regard in December 2016 when he agreed to grant a similar tag for two ongoing Metro rail routes — Metro 2A (Dahisar East to DN Nagar), and Metro 7 (Andheri East to Dahisar East). In October last, the Chief Minister had also adopted the railway land development model for Metro rail services, keeping constructions for operational purposes along Metro rail line out of the ambit of the universal development control regulations of the concerned municipalities.

The MMRDA has also sought a similar tag for the 80,730 square feet government land allotted to it in Aarey for construction of the Metro Bhawan and another 86,000 square feet land parcel in the same locality, which it proposed to be used for a machinery yard. But a final decision with regard to these lands is yet to be taken, said sources.

In April this year, the Chief Minister had sanctioned a proposal for leaving 960 hectare of MbPT-owned land in South and Central Mumbai out of the Mumbai development plan’s ambit. Further, last month, his government designated the state-run Maharashtra Housing Area Development Authority (MHADA) as the planning body for 114 Mhada-owned layouts, collectively spread over 20 square kilometre in Mumbai.

Before the MbPT and the MMRDA proposals were sanctioned, about nine percent of Mumbai’s land mass — 41.69 square kilometre out of 476.24 square kilometre — was already notified as a special planning zone. The civic body has been opposing notification of the SPAs within the city. It has contended that the entire city should be governed by the same agency and attract the same development control regulations. But senior MMRDA officials argued that the newly acquired status would help in expediting work for completion of the Metro rail routes.