New CRZ notifications could trigger awry development in Mumbai, landing India’s financial capital in a mess, writes GAJANAN KHERGAMKER
The new CRZ Notifications 2018 spell disaster for Mumbai where builders could get floor space index (FSI) as high as up to 3 for the island city. The notification shockingly reduces the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) – the area measured from the high tide line to the landward side – from an erstwhile 100 metres to a bare 50 metres, considered environmentally, a colossal hazard.
The most critical classified as CRZ-IA, constitutes ecologically sensitive areas that play a role in maintaining the integrity of the coast: The new CRZ Notifications 2018, in case of Mumbai’s mangroves, when more than 1,000 square metres in size, provide for a buffer area of 50 metres along the mangroves.
Also, with regard to regions closer to bays or creeks, the protection applies to an even smaller area of land.
With all of this finalised without entering into the mandatory consultative processes, stakeholders and the Civil Society are all set to move court soon.
“The fresh amendments to the CRZ rules are all set to enable redevelopment of a string of projects in slums and in old, ramshackle structures that were difficult to develop earlier,” maintains realty consultant Tarun Chandiramani. Many profit-driven short-sighted residents of old Mumbai feel that the city remains under-developed owing to the archaic CRZ notifications that prevent the city’s growth and emergence into world class coastal cities such as Tokyo, Seoul, Dubai, Hong Kong. “There is an urgent need to increase the FSI to tackle the housing problem,” feels Chandiramani, however conceding that the move should be monitored to prevent environmental damage to the already-fragile city.
In keeping with the popular sentiment, in 2017, Environment Minister Ramdas Kadam had stressed that once the limit is revised, the state would be able to carry out many coastal infrastructure projects that were hampered by the CRZ Rules. While the government maintains that several infrastructure projects were being stalled owing to CRZ, sans consultation, the notifications look like a move made to squarely appease the builder lobby and a short-sighted voter base.
One crucial change to Mumbai’s plan will be that now slum rehabilitation schemes will be permitted in CRZ II—an erstwhile no-development zone.
A large number of residential structures, particularly along the Western coast or in South Mumbai where the city tapers down, falls within the 500 metres of the High Tide Line, and were squarely prevented from re-development.
Redevelopment was, concurrently, strictly regulated by the regulations, which restricted FSI to pre-1991 period. However, now following permissions granted for construction in CRZ-II zone and laid down in CRZ Notifications 2018, the state government can redevelop these areas through public-private partnerships and the FSI will be in accordance with the prevailing city norms.
Beyond Mumbai, populated rural areas like Thane fall in the CRZ-IIIA slot where population density is more than 2,161 per sq km as per 2011 census base. Here, in CRZ-IIIA, only an area up to 50 metres from the High Tide Line on the landward side shall be earmarked as the No Development Zone as per this notification. Where population density is lesser than 2,161 per sq km, in towns and districts less populated, an area up to 200 metres from the High Tide Line on the landward side shall be earmarked as the No Development Zone.
That said, the stark refusal to undertake consultations with experts and environmentalists only reeks of a populist bias by the government. “Now, despite the CRZ Notification Rules being published across the media, they have not yet made the official notification public,” says NGO Vanashakti’s director Stalin D, director.
“The minute they do that, we will move court and petition against the notification which is primarily a move to appease builders. It has been introduced to permit the destruction of coastal areas in Maharashtra, specifically in areas such as Palghar, Vasai, Mira-Bhayander, Virar, Uran where the builder lobby has already begun constructions on a war-footing despite the December 2018 notification not being made public even till the third week of January 2018. The idea is to open up all protected areas for development as elections draw near,” said Stalin.
Meanwhile, slums in South Mumbai such as Ganesh Murti Nagar, Geeta Nagar, Ambedkar Nagar where swarms of developer agents are known to cajole rag-pickers, fishermen, cleaners and domestic help to obtain their ‘written consent’ on forms for slum rehabilitation projects are now fired with fresh imagination. With possibilities of ‘redevelopment’ becoming more real, they have only become greedier.
Now, under the New CRZ Notifications 2018, activities permitted under CRZ-II include reconstruction of authorised buildings, “without change in present land use, subject to the local town and country planning regulations as applicable from time to time, and the norms for the Floor Space Index or Floor Area Ration, prevailing as on the date of the notification.”
“With developers keen on making the most of the cash-rich coastline of South Mumbai and set to earn a fortune, it’s only natural for the slum-dwellers to bargain hard for their bit of the profit,” maintains political worker Suresh Kanojia, who works towards slum welfare.
So, most of the slum-dwellers in Mumbai, and arguably, the world’s richest slums are set to earn a killing from developers, employing agencies, and dole out fortunes to wrangle ‘bulk consents’ from residents.
Why, most of South Mumbai’s pagdi residents, living in premises owned by landlord and covered by the Maharashtra Rent Control Act, and cooperative housing society members have now begun holding urgent Special General Body Meetings to garner support from members to invite developers to re-develop their properties in view of the new, relaxed CRZ notifications which, along with the altered Mumbai’s Development Plan 2034, provides them new, bigger homes and profit to boot.
With climate change affecting the world drastically, the builders’ lobby’s attempt to ‘develop’ Mumbai disproportionately while dodging laid-down norms could well land India’s financial capital in an even worse mess.