‘Redevelopment only answer to housing problem’

Redevelopment is the key to a city’s development. And the government, developers and people sincerely need to implement the redevelopment projects to change the city’s image.

Architect Hafeez Contractor said this while addressing a 500-odd gathering on Sunday at the DNA seminar on redevelopment at Nehru Centre, Worli.

He said redevelopment would help improve the quality of life, bring amenities, develop infrastructure and add more revenue in the municipal corporation’s kitty.

He said if the redevelopment project of 16,000-odd old and crumbling buildings does not happen, then more people will be forced to stay in slums.

“One out of two people are already staying in slums in Mumbai. In 1976, the slum population was 47%, now it was 60%. On the other hand, urbanisation is increasing. More people are migrating from rural to urban areas in search of opportunities and jobs,” said the architect.

At present, developers and the government are able to supply only 72,906 houses against the demand of 5,47,434. “We need at least 20 years to fill up the wide gap.”

So, the city needs more houses and quickly. “Redevelopment can only fulfil that mounting housing demand. We need to pay serious attention toward the policies. For the complete development of the city, we need at least an FSI of six against the existing 1.33 FSI in city and 1 FSI in suburb,” Contractor said.