Shivaji Park Maidan never had a heritage Grade 1 tag: Dinesh Afzalpurkar

Q) Why are heritage buildings in a poor and abysmal state?
A: Ideally, individual owners or organisations should be looking after them. But it is for the Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee (MHCC) to ensure that the preservation is carried out properly.

However, considering the volume of work and people not being full-timers, it is difficult to give enough attention to the aspects of monitoring of preservation. So, I feel that BMC should
create a separate and a stronger executive arm of the MHCC, which will look only after the maintenance of heritage structures and periodically report to the MHCC.

Q) What about the financial aspect? While bigger organisations may have the resources to maintain a heritage building, individual owners of heritage structures may not have the finance to do that.
A: It’s true that conservation of heritage architecture requires substantial expenditure. Each individual who owns a heritage building should be given some incentives, either in the form of monetary
or taxation benefits.

Q) So, what is stopping the benefits?
A. MHCC has made several proposals on this to the government, both, when I was the chairman and now, when Mr Ranganathan is in-charge. If the government can consider the proposals and select those which it considers deem to be appropriate, then the individuals will also take the initiative to preserve their structures.

Q) The heritage review committee report on Chembur was submitted to the urban development department on September 2 and it was cleared by the CM on September 11. On the other hand, the committee’s report on Shivaji Park was submitted in March, but it is still awaiting clearance. Why?
A. A part of the reason could be because the election code of conduct came into force immediately after we submitted our report on Shivaji Park. Moreover, in February the high court had given
a partial relief to Shivaji Park residents, by allowing redevelopment of heritage structures, not listed as grade I or grade II, without the MHCC nod. The order mentioned the BMC could decide on the proposals and special permission was required from the municipal commissioner if any
building exceeded 24 meters in height. Moreover, loading of Transfer of Development Rights is allowed only in suburbs and not in the city and if Chembur was a heritage precinct, that would not have been possible. So, the Chembur issue was probably fast tracked.

Q) What was the need for a separate ‘heritage open space’ category for Shivaji Park Maidan?
A: Firstly, Shivaji Park Maidan never featured in the original list of heritage structures that came out in 1995. It was only proposed to be put into a heritage grade I structure in the July 2012 list. Secondly, grade I, II or III heritage tag can only be attributed to a built-up space and the maidan was not a built-up space, but a ground. Thirdly, for grade I heritage structures, there is a rule that a 100 metre to and from view from such a structure should stay unobstructed. This means, the grade I tag would have affected the redevelopment of the surrounding buildings. The new heritage open space category was only a new and more apt designation. It was in no way, any less important than the grade I heritage tag. We wanted to ensure that the sanctity of the maidan was kept and it doesn’t end up looking like a courtyard of housing societies. In UK, all gardens are listed in a separate category than the structures. We had suggested a similar category in Chembur called ‘heritage flora’.