Space in Mumbai comes at a premium, but a building owner in Juhu took this fact to another level.
Space in Mumbai comes at a premium, but a building owner in Juhu took this fact to another level.
Owner Smita Kapadia, owns building Laxmi Sadan, a ground-plus-nine storey tower at Juhu Village in Andheri. To safeguard her parking space, which she claims other tenants of her building use when she isn’t, Kapadia has put up collapsible gates to protect his parking space.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) considers this as an illegal development and has issued the owner a notice under section 55 of the Mumbai Regional Town Planning Act (MRTP), claiming that Kapadia should remove the illegal construction or else action would be taken as the collapsible gates were not part of the original construction plan submitted to the civic body.
Smita Kapadia has moved the Bombay High court, challenging the said notice issued to it by the corporation.
According to her petition, it was in 2003 that she gave the rights to redevelop her building and the new tenants were given flats on tenancy basis while she occupied the ninth floor. The building has 30 slots available for car parking on the stilt (20) and podium (10).
In 2005, that the new tenants were allotted flats. Kapadia has two cars, and parking space allotted on the stilt. However, she found that her parking space was being used by other tenants. The issue escalated so much that in 2008-09 she installed the collapsible gates. She also moved the Dindoshi Civil court to get a permanent injunction against the tenants from parking their cars on her parking space.
However, on October 29, the corporation issued Kapadia a notice, claiming that the development of temporary nature is unauthourised. Kapadia replied to the notice on November 9. However, the civic body sent her another notice on December 2, overlooking her reply and asking her to remove the gates within seven days.
Kapadia’s advocate argued that the collapsible gates do not inconvenience anyone and the tenants’ parking spaces are not obstructed. Division bench of Justice P B Majmudar and Justice M R Bhatkar, said “If we allow you to carry on, others will come forward. People might even start living in parking spaces.”
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