Architectural oldies like Khotachi Wadi in Girgaum, Babulnath, and the Parsi and Hindu colonies in Dadar may live longer now.
MUMBAI: Architectural oldies like Khotachi Wadi in Girgaum, Babulnath, and the Parsi and Hindu colonies in Dadar may live longer now.
The Bombay high court has ruled that only those dilapidated cessed buildings for which the cost of repair exceeds Rs1,200 per sq m as fixed by the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) can be reconstructed.
The ruling is a far cry from reconstruction permissions granted by MHADA previously, by visually checking the building’s façade and determining whether it was constructed in the 1940s.
Now, to qualify for reconstruction, a building will have to be certified by MHADA as per the MHADA Act, 1976, or have been declared dilapidated or dangerous prior to the monsoon of 1997.
A division bench of Justice HL Gokhale and Justice JP Devadhar passed the order while rehearing a public interest litigation initiated by former chief secretary JB D’Souza, civic activist Cyrus Guzdar, and structural engineer Shirish Patel, challenging the rampant misuse of Development Control Regulation 33(7), which regulates reconstruction of cessed buildings.
The order may affect 40-50 reconstruction schemes in various stages of planning.
The PIL had been sent back to the high court from the Supreme Court after the Property Redevelopers Association and some tenants challenged an earlier high court order in the matter.
While disposing of the PIL in October 2005, the high court had set up three committees to verify the number of tenants eligible to be rehabilitated in a redevelopment scheme, check the structural stability of the building, and to take a re-look at conditions framed for DCR 33(7).
The court had further brought down the floor space index permitted on such plots from 7 to 4 to bear a rational relationship with the availability of civic amenities like water, sewerage and transport.
While removing this restriction (of using FSI of 4), the court on Monday ordered that all buildings taller than 24m (ground + seven storeys) in height would have to keep a compulsory open space of 3.6m as against 1.5m stipulated in the DCR.
Putting the safety of building occupants uppermost, the court held that reduced side spaces for reconstructed buildings were not reasonable as they left no space for fire-fighting and were violative of Article 14 of the Constitution (right to life).
Cessed buildings are those constructed from the 1940s until 1969. Tenants have to pay a small amount as levy (cess) to the government as their share for building repairs.
There are about 19,644 cessed buildings between Colaba and Mahim. MHADA has classified the buildings into three categories. Category A refers to buildings built before 1940, B refers to those built between January 1, 1940, and December 31, 1950, and C refers to those built between January 1, 1951, and December 31, 1969. Section 33(7) of DCR, however, applies only to category A. There are 16,502 buildings in this category.
The PIL said the 1999 amendment to Rule 33(7) removed the cap on additional FSI that could be granted to builders. Also, the more the number of tenants, the higher was the permissible FSI. As a result builders started creating fake tenancies to claim additional FSI. In some cases, safe buildings were demolished and reconstructed. The rule led to unbridled construction of high-rises that compromised on the quality of life. In a number of cases the added FSI was being misused and open spaces between two buildings was reduced to half the permissible limit.
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