DNA EXCLUSIVE: Realty firms fail to deliver parking slots to civic body

The civic authority's well-established knack for lack of adequate planning has stripped its booming citizenry of options to park in a city where there were not many to begin with.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which was supposed to have nearly 56,000 car parking slots, a dismally small number given the volume of vehicles, has barely managed to scrape out around 8,500.

The blame rests in part with the authority, and in bits with the tardy pace of construction by builders.

A dozen years ago, in 2006-07, when parking in Mumbai was tough but not as much the hot mess it is now, the city authorities decided to create some parking slots for Mumbaikars through redevelopment projects. The BMC, under 1991 Development Control Regulation 33 (24), offered builders extra floor-space index, that is, plot area on which one can actually construct. And in return, the builders were to hand over some parking space to the authority.

As many as 88 builders leapt at the chance to have additional space to build on. Rejecting nine, BMC allowed 79 to construct residential or commercial buildings in the city from Mulund to Mahalaxmi, hoping to get 79 car parks with 55,742 slots. But it has today with it 26 plots, with a grand total of 21,778 slots.

It gets worse. Even with these 26 parking lots, the BMC has so far appointed contractors to only 14, effectively releasing 8,526 slots, or 15 per cent of the promised space, for both two-wheeler and four-wheeler parking.

The tendering or re-tendering process to appoint contractors for the other 12 of the 26 lots handed over by builders is under way.

As per BMC's own records, there are a total of 146 parking lots across the city with a capacity to accommodate 34,808 vehicles. Most of these, including those made by the builders, are roadside slots.

It helps to bear in mind that the city has 34 lakh registered vehicles – and these are just the ones registered in the city. Vehicles from the metropolitan area visit the city in significant numbers daily.

Blind to a crushing scramble for space thanks to its own poor planning, BMC has announced a fine of up to Rs 10,000 for parking within a kilometre of its lots, to come into effect on July 7.

That the much-appreciated move proved to be a dud a decade or so later because of reasons yet to fully come to the fore is obvious.

Civic data shows that most of the 79 builders were sent their Letters of Intention by the BMC before 2014, and BMC says it hasn't received any Intimation of Disapproval (IOD) from any of the 53 builders who, for all practical purposes, have not honoured their commitments yet.

IOD is an important authorisation given to the builder by the BMC's building proposals department to redevelop an existing structure. Once the builder gets it, it is to be submitted to the BMC's roads department.

Among these builders are Oberoi (plot at Mulund), DB Realty (Lower Parel), Dosti Corporation (Sewree) and Omkar (Mahalaxmi).

Questioned about the issue, they said that they have either not used the FSI or have not completed the project yet.

Congress corporator Asif Zakaria said, "The builders don't take the occupation certificate (OC) from the BMC, their project remains under development for years and they don't hand over parking lots to the civic body. There are thousands of buildings in the city without OC."

Rais Shaikh, group leader of Samajwadi Party in the BMC, said, "The BMC has failed to obtain parking lots from the builders in the last 10 or so years. The civic body should first make enough parking space available and then declare a no-parking zone."

Builders Respond

• We have neither taken FSI nor IOD or completion certificate for any parking lot. All of this is baseless.
  —DB Realty
• We will reply tomorrow.
  —Omkar Builder
• The concerned project is currently under construction and till date we have not utilised FSI in lieu of public parking lot under regulation 33(24) of DCR 1991.
  —Oberoi Constructions Ltd
• The public parking project at Sewree has not commenced yet, nor is any FSI used by Dosti. On completion of the project, Dosti Corporation will hand over the parking lot to MCGM as per the provisions...
  —Dosti Corporation

• 79 Lots BMC expected from builders
• 26 Lots builders handed over
• 14 Lots to which contractors appointed