Flashback 2015: Misadventures in planning for city’s long-term future

For a city like Mumbai, where even a small piece of land is worth crores of rupees at some places, its Development Plan (DP) — the city’s detailed land use blueprint — assumes huge significance. No wonder, the new draft DP for the next 20 years (2014-34) of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was the talk of the town during the entire year.

Not just for its several controversial recommendations, but also for its surfeit of glaring errors.So much so that the draft DP was finally more or less scrapped. The fiasco also cost the then municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte his post and forced the civic body to start the process all over again.

As the earlier DP 1991 rules had expired, the BMC was in the process of making the draft DP 2034 over the last couple of years. It had also appointed a consortium of Indian and French urban planning companies to prepare the plan.

But what they ultimately dished out was a draft full of anomalies and glitches that was condemned from all quarters. There were numerous blunders in the draft, like several important institutes in the city being erroneously marked and omission of religious and heritage structures.

The draft DP also had a lot of controversial suggestions, which came under severe flak from civic activists. Those proposals included substantial hike in floor space index (FSI), plans to develop Aarey Colony into a commercial zone, reduction in no-development zones, marking gaothans as slums, etc.

The draft DP had suggested the concept of variable FSI by linking it to transit-oriented development. The earlier DP (1991-2011) prescribed 1.33 FSI in the island city and 1 in suburbs in a bid to contain population growth and density. But the new DP proposed FSI from two to as high as eight depending on the residential and commercial importance of that particular area. FSI is the ratio of the permissible built-up area to the plot area.

The concept was slammed squarely by experts, saying it would create chaos as the city does not have proper infrastructure to withstand the development effected by the increase in FSI. “Where is the basic infrastructure to cope up with additional housing, that will come up with increased FSI It is going to benefit only developers and not common people. The prices of houses are not going to come down. There is no guarantee that the money received by increasing the FSI will be used for public housing,” said urban planner Arvind Unni.

The BMC also planned to develop a BKC-like business hub on the Aarey Colony land, which is considered one of the few green lungs of the city. If that proposal was not enough to raise the hackles of environmentalists, Kunte stoked further outrage by expressing his inability to protect open spaces in the city. In a bizarre statement, Kunte said there is possibility of Aarey Colony getting encroached and turned into slum ghettoes like Dharavi or Ganpat Patil Nagar at Dahisar if not developed properly. His comments came in for sharp criticism with activists accusing him for running away from his duty of protecting open spaces in the city.

The DP recommendations created the ‘Save Aarey Movement,’ in which Mumbaikars came together in large numbers to save the region from the clutches of commercial development. Environment activist Harish Pandey said, “No development should be at the cost of green cover in the city. The BMC should spare Aarey from development. It should remain as green cover and be treated as the lungs of the city.”

There was also a huge uproar on the omission of many heritage and religious structures from the draft DP. Several important heritage buildings and precincts like Asiatic Library Town Hall, Oval Maidan, Mount Mary Church, St Thomas Cathedral, Elphinstone College, Old Customs House, Central Telegraph Office, Police Commissioners Office, Haffkine Institute, Sitaladevi temple, Bandra Mosque, Kenesseth Eliyahoo Synagogue were found missing in the plan. A concerned Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee (MHCC) had to issue a warning that the city would lose nearly three fourth of its heritage glory if the proposed DP gets implemented.

In response to the draft DP, the BMC was bombarded with as many as 64,867 suggestions and objections from the public. With the objections getting shriller and shriller, the state government finally had to step in as it announced a three-member committee under the chief secretary to re-access and re-evaluate the draft DP. The committee unanimously opined that there were large scale errors in the DP like reduction in no-development zone, reservations on land approved for development, residential use on saltpan land, reservation on Mhada land for mill workers etc. At several places, development is proposed where it is legally not possible, it said. Taking note of the anomalies and errors, the state government finally asked the BMC to rework and republish the draft DP.

The DP fiasco also cost Kunte his post as he was unceremoniously shunted from his position just a couple of days before the end of his tenure. The BMC also sacked the consultant firm concerned, on which it spent a whopping Rs 12 crore.

In this background, it will be a tough challenge for the BMC to rectify all the anomalies and provide an error-free DP in the new year. Though the civic body has initiated the process, experts are still skeptical. The recent designated survey, which shows demarcation of plots as per their reservations, has already come under criticism by many.

Godfrey Pimenta from the Watchdog Foundation, who had pointed out many flaws in the draft DP, said, “In order to have a meaningful DP, the BMC should consult all stakeholders including those working at the grassroot and not a few consultants, who do not have knowledge of the ground realities of the city.”