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SC verdict may change the face of island city

Setting aside a Bombay High court order, the Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the decks for civic authorities to redevelop 16,000 cessed buildings in the island city.

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Apex court order paves the way for redevelopment of 16,000 cessed bldgs

DELHI/MUMBAI: Setting aside a Bombay High court order, the Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the decks for civic authorities to redevelop 16,000 cessed buildings in the island city.

A bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and P Sathasivam quashed the 2006 HC order that had permitted only those buildings to be reconstructed if they were certified dilapidated or dangerous, increased compulsory open space from 5 ft to 12 ft, and set up new committees for validation of tenancies.

The order may affect about 186 reconstruction schemes. While developers say the ruling will benefit over two lakh families residing in cessed buildings in areas like Kalbadevi, Bhendi Bazaar, and Null Bazaar, it is a blow to the state government’s ambitious plan to redevelop old buildings in a cluster of more than one acre.
It will also affect heritage precincts like Khotachiwadi in Girgaum, Babulnath, Parsi Colony and Hindu Colony in Dadar.

The SC ruling has caused furore among social and heritage activists who are protesting further “degradation’’ of the city. “It is a disaster. Now even cessed buildings which are structurally stable will be demolished by developers for profits. Multi-storey buildings will come up on narrow plots thereby making a mockery of civic planning rules providing for mandatory open spaces,’’ said structural engineer and one of the PIL petitioners Shirish Patel.

But Pujit Aggrawal, managing director of Orbit Constructions and spokesperson for Property Redevelopers Association (PRA), which had challenged the Bombay HC order, hailed the apex court order.

“With practically no redevelopment scheme having taken off in the past four years, the issue has been a learning experience for the BMC, Mhada and developers. While the civic body will now be conscious about relaxing planning norms, developers will look to redeveloping cessed buildings in a cluster. The move will help solve the housing shortage in the island city,’’ Aggrawal said.

The apex court’s order came on an appeal filed by the PRA, Property Owners’ Association and some individual housing societies challenging an earlier high court order.
Former chief secretary, the late JB D’Souza, civic activist Cyrus Guzder and structural engineer Shirish Patel had filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Bombay HC in 2004 challenging the rampant misuse of Development Control Regulation 33 (7), which regulates reconstruction of cessed buildings.

In their PIL, Patel and others had pointed out that the 1999 amendment to DCR 33 (7) removed the cap on the additional FSI granted to builders as an incentive to redevelop the cessed buildings. Also, FSI was directly proportionate to the number of tenants. As a result builders started claiming additional FSI by showing fake tenancies. In some cases, safe buildings were demolished and reconstructed under the 33 (7) scheme. This led to unbridled construction of high-rises that compromised the quality of life. In a number of cases, the additional FSI was misused and open spaces between two buildings were reduced to half the permissible limit.

The PIL had been earlier reverted from the Supreme Court to the HC after the PRA challenged the high court order. In October 2005, the HC had set up three committees to verify the number of tenants eligible to be rehabilitated, structural stability of the building to be redeveloped and relook conditions framed for DCR 33 (7). The court had further put a cap on the Floor Space Index permitted on a plot from 7 to 4 to ensure that availability of civic infrastructure including water, sewerage and transport were balanced.

This was again challenged by the PRA in the SC which lobbed the ball back to the HC.

In a 2006 order, the high court allowed redevelopment of only those dilapidated cessed buildings where the repair cost exceeded Rs1,200 per sq ft as fixed by Mhada. Mhada used to grant redevelopment permission merely by visually checking the building façade and that the building was constructed in 1940s.

All these provisions were challenged by the PRA in the SC which on Thursday struck them down and upheld the provisions as per the 1999 DCR 33 (7).

Cessed buildings are those constructed in the 1940s. Tenants have to pay a small amount as levy (cess) to the government towards their share for building repairs. There are about 19,644 cessed buildings constructed between 1940 and 1969 in the stretch from Colaba to Mahim. Mhada has classified the buildings into three categories.
Category A refers to structures built before 1940, B refers to those built between January 1, 1940 and December 13, 1950 and C refers to those that have come up between January 1, 1951 and December 30 1969. Section 33 (7) of DCR, however, refers to only category ‘A’ of these buildings. Currently, 16,502 buildings fall in this category.

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