Charging open spaces derides our right to convenience

Health and hygiene, safety and security and collective good are underpinning aspects of existence of building bylaws. It is a tool to safeguard public good. These bylaws are designed to ensure that quality of life gets better within acceptable standards. It is with these noble intentions that good building bylaws set their norms and provisions.

Allocation of terraces, verandas, balconies, parking lots and courtyards as complimentary features, exempted from any computation of construction areas and thereby encouraged to be provided in a building, were some such provisions to enhance quality of living environment. In a hot and dry climate, outdoor spaces (especially sheltered semi-covered areas) are most effective spaces for climate comfort. They shelter from harsh sun and yet remain transparent for breeze. Open to sky terraces are pleasant in the evening, making them more comfortable than indoors which radiate heat back into the atmosphere.

Culturally, these are preferred spaces for activities to spill over. Even affluent families living in bungalows often sleep on terraces in summer nights. Functionally, these spaces count as active areas rather than residual spaces. All these are reasons why these spaces were acknowledged, included and encouraged in building bylaws by exempting them from calculations of built-up areas and FSI. This incentive saw all buildings providing balconies and terraces, until recently.

Many of these sensible and humane provisions, which we enjoyed over the last century, seem to have been snatched from us under pretext of their abuse and obsolescence. Today when these spaces are taxed by way of being considered as built, they are forcibly getting eliminated from the current buildings. This is a big loss with adverse implications like reduced social interaction, lack of mobility and confinement indoors. There is environmental discomfort as well by loss of transition/buffer zone that sheltered from external vagaries.
On the larger scale of neighbourhood and city, parking and recreational open spaces are other examples of landscapes which are exempted from construction tax.

City or neighbourhood plans are seen complete, habitable and humane only after inclusion of open spaces. Mumbai and other densely populated cities exempt two-storeyed volume or even roof space or parking structure outdoors from built-up area from the allowable built.

In other words, seen as integral aspects of healthy living, these features and provisions are fully subsidised by the authorities for general good of users through its collective use and access.
When these features are charged by developers to be used by people, it is a fundamental violation of the basic premise on which these provisions are offered. When parking spaces and open areas are subsidised, these benefits need to be transferred to its end users. Making quick bucks by charging these facilities is not in sync with the very ideology of its mandatory and free provision. It is neither a question of affordability (charging more or less) nor of market viability (market mantra of pay for what you get).

Parking off the street in allotted spaces needs to be encouraged. Charging on already subsidised parking serves as an impediment eventually discourages people from using parking facilities. Parking by the street is equivalent to providing stairs and elevators in a building, which of course are mandatory and they aren't charged (at least thus far). Similarly, terraces and open spaces are inherent functions of a building and cannot be charged.

Not only parking rents in public places, selling car parks to flat owners in a building and in that greed asking visitors to park on the street is even more sinful.

This epidemic has infected government authorities as well. Charging civic spaces like Kankaria Lake are germicidal examples of the same. We need to wake to our rights as consumers and challenge lawmakers for illogical policies of allowing siphoning of the subsidies from its rightful beneficiaries.