Developers plot legal battle

MUMBAI: BMC commissioner Subodh Kumar's new building approval policy seeks to charge builders 100% premium on certain areas of a residential building that are currently available virtually free of cost to developers. But many builders sell these areas at market rate to flat buyers.
As the chief minister seems to have agreed to the plan, builders are eyeing a legal battle.A developer said once the issue lands in court, it will delay the policy's implementation for a "long time". "Hopefully by then the commissioner would have retired," he said.
Many developers who paid astronomical sums for land but are still awaiting construction approvals will be the worst-hit when the commissioner's guidelines are approved. In the past one year, some builders outbid competitors by quoting a few thousand crores for prime plots in Mumbai. Their valuation was based on building concessions they hoped to procure from the BMC and build way beyond permissible limits and earn windfall profits. Kumar's proposal plans to restrict this additional construction-flowerbeds, pocket terraces, decks, voids-to just 25% of the total built-up area and charge builders 100% premium for it.Currently, these areas are not counted in the building's FSI. Builders sell these areas at market price and tell buyers to amalgamate them illegally into their living room or bedroom to make them more spacious. In the island city, some developers have converted entire refuge floors into party halls.
The non-profit Urban Design Research Institute, comprising eminent Mumbaikars including leading architects and urban planners, said Kumar's policy, among other things, will reduce speculation. "Though in the short term builders and developers will retaliate by increasing prices to show their dissent, in the long term there will be a price adjustment that will bring down the average price per square foot and reduce speculation and overcharging," said UDRI executive director Pankaj Joshi.
Builders operating in the Bandra to Juhu belt are equally worried because the maximum misuse of building concessions granted by past municipal commissioners was noticed in these areas.
Utsal Karani of NGO Janhit Manch said the BMC should carry out a survey of all new buildings where occupation certificates were issued in the last 2-3 years to find out possible violations, irregularities in building bye-laws and use of excess FSI.
"All under-construction projects must be placed under special scrutiny, including physical verification of the layouts, areas of such projects and further scrutiny after two years of occupation certificates being granted," he said, adding that civic officials who cleared such a building proposal be prosecuted.