Affordable housing land increased by 80 hectares

Mumbai: The area for affordable housing in the city has been increased by 80 hectares - including 55 hectares of the Mumbai Port Trust’s (MbPT) land. The Development Control Rules (DCR) will now be known as Development Control and Promotional Regulations (DCPR), and it will promote the developable land in the city for the affordable housing.

The seven-member DP Planning Committee submitted its report to mayor Snehal Ambekar on Monday. The committee has made several recommendations – claiming that the land for affordable housing, open spaces and ease of doing business has been increased.

The committee has proposed new areas for no-development zones (NDZ), which have now been divided into Natural Areas (NA), Special Development Zone-I (SDZ-I) and Special Development Zone-II (SDZ-II). The Aarey area has been marked as a Green Zone.

“Out of 1300 hectares of NDZ land in the city, we have retained 1150 hectares as NA. The 250 hectares of land, encumbered by slums, has been brought under SDZ-I. The 1700 hectares of NDZ land, which is in the environmental sensitive zone, but developable has been put into SDZ II, where maximum houses can be built for affordable housing,” said committee member Gautam Chatterjee.

The committee has proposed two new zones for MbPT land – Port’s Operational Zone and Port’s Waterfront Development Zone. The MbPT has agreed to provide 55 hectares of land for affordable housing.

In a bid to sustain industries in the city, the planning committee has also proposed to double the floor space index (FSI) from 1 to 2.