Housing, yes, but where are the amenities

As the state government prepares for another multi-crore development package for Dharavi, the time is ideal to raise questions about the housing policy for Mumbai. Does housing involve only building houses? Renowned architect Charles Correa argues that the cry for ‘More FSI to house the poor’ is absolute bunkum. He says it will make an even greater mess of our city. Urban governance calls for better supporting infrastructure

Given the enormous population of Mumbai, it is essential that we find ways to make maximum use of the available space for additional housing, both on the island as well as in the suburbs.  This crucial exercise involves identifying which densities are attainable - and which are not.

Now, housing involves much more than just building houses.  For each household has other needs as well - schools, hospitals and other such essential facilities, as also a certain minimum open space for parks and playgrounds.  For the schools, hospitals, etc, the Government of India stipulates an area of 12 sq m per person.

For the parks and playgrounds (i.e. green areas), worldwide planning standards, including UNESCO, stipulate 16 sq m per person.  Thus the total area of amenities to be provided adds up to 28 sq m per person (see Fig 1).  These should really be our standards - but since space is at such a premium in this city, let us for the purposes of this investigation, reduce this 28 sq m to just 10sq m of amenities per person.

Fig 2 illustrates luxury apartments with a carpet area of 200 sq m  —  which, at an  average of 5 persons per household, comes to 40sq m per person.  Thus, for ground floor units, the square metres required per capita comes to 50 (i.e. 40 + 10).  If another family is housed on an upper floor, then the foot-print of the building stays at 40, but the area needed for amenities goes up by 10 sq m — making a total of 60, which comes to an average per person of 30 sq m.  So 50 sq m per person has been reduced to 30 -
and the saving in urban land is substantial.

As we build higher, this trend continues — at five stories, the square metres per capita is reduced to 18, and at ten stories to 14.  Beyond this height, the area per capita lessens, but more gradually — twenty stories comes to 12 sq m per person, and forty stories to 11.  Somewhere between 20 and 40 stories we have reached the point of diminishing returns.  (A point we would have encountered earlier if we had used our original requirement for amenities and green areas of 28 sq m per person).

Now let’s look at the other extreme, i.e. housing for the poor.  Here we will use the minimum size stipulated by the Government of Maharashtra for all re-development schemes (including Dharavi), i.e. a carpet area of 22 sq m per dwelling unit - which comes to 4.4 sq m per person.   As you will see in fig 2, for this tenement size, ground floor units require 14.4 sq m per person, two floors 12.2, and five floors 10.9. 

At ten floors it is 10.4 and twenty floors 10.2. So here we reach the point of diminishing returns much earlier - at around five floors or so.  Between 10 and 20 storeys the difference per capita is just 0.2 sq m!  So going higher than 5 floors will not “save” any land for the poor in Dharavi - but it certainly will make their lives a living hell.

Construction costs, broken-down elevators, electricity black-outs, etc, are impossible to deal with at their income levels. The figures for middle income units (from 10 to 20 sq m of built-up area per person) fall in between these two curves. Here the point of diminishing returns occurs somewhere between the fifth and the tenth storey. Beyond that, any savings in city land are purely delusory.

Furthermore, though the point of diminishing returns varies with the size of each housing category, notice that all the curves finally flatten out at somewhere at just over 10 sq m (See Fig 3).   Why is this?  This is because we selected 10 sq m as the per capita area for amenities.  If we had used the official figure of 28 sq m, then the curves would have flattened out at that number. 

Which brings us to a fundamental truth: That the upper limit of housing densities is not a function of taller buildings, but of the area of amenities you provide per capita.  This is an extremely important principle - one which, ever since the 18th century, the cities of Europe have understood very well.  Far from providing just 10 sq m of amenities per person, in Paris and London this area would be closer to 40 sq m.  This is why we enjoy those cities so much. Not only are there enough schools and hospitals for everyone, but also generous parks and playgrounds where citizens can take real pleasure in their city - and feel justly proud of it.  

These diagrams show us something else of very great importance - and it is this.  The only way to build low-income housing at very high densities is to leave out the amenities!  So this cry of ‘Give us higher FSI to house the poor” is an absolute nonsense.  It will make an even greater mess of our city. 

And we cannot blame just the real estate developer for this state of affairs. A developer, by definition, is primarily concerned with the particular site on which he is going to construct his building (the left image in Fig 2, marked ‘A’) - and he naturally tries to get as much FSI, and make as much profit, as he can.  He does not feel responsible for what is outside his plot of land - i.e. the supporting infrastructure of schools, hospitals, etc. (marked ‘B’).  For such an overview is the responsibility of the government officials and planners running the city.  That is what urban governance is about.

Unfortunately, over the last two decades, any planning capability our state government or municipal corporation may have once possessed has atrophied - or been systematically dismantled.  Today no such capability exists.  The resulting vacuum has made it possible for the politicians to issue orders directly to bureaucrats - who in turn pass them on to the government officials concerned.   No overview - nor any accountability - is involved in the process.  That is how our city is run.

And like Roman masses distracted by circuses, we are entertained by visions of “becoming like Shanghai and Singapore”. Which, to say the least, is absurd. 

First of all, the Government of Singapore has provided an ample supply of schools, hospitals and open spaces for each of its inhabitants. And yet, despite this, do we know how bitterly the high-rises of Singapore are resented by the residents who live in them? 

The Chief Planner told me that people urinate in the elevators as a mark of defiance - and so the authorities had to install CCTV in the elevators to catch the offenders.  They also have roving vans with teams of repairmen, circling continuously within each housing estate. 

Do we have the resources that can sustain this level of services? If not, then the socio-political contract that underlies our city could start to disintegrate - which of course will only hasten our own withdrawal into gated communities (our contemporary version of the cantonments the British built for themselves).  These are the crucial issues at stake and at a time when Mumbai is allowed to “densify” in a mindless, cruel and uncontrolled manner.