Policy fillip forrevampof Mumbai’sbeatupbuildings
BRINGING IN TRANSPARENCY BMC aims to ensure tenants’ rights are better protected MUMBAI:
Inasignificantmovethat will bring transparency to the process of redeveloping old and dilapidated buildings in the city, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation(BMC)isbringingin anewpolicythatwillensuretenants’ rights and streamline the process that is often stuck betweenresidentsandlandlords or developers.
Thenewpolicyassumessignificancefollowingseveralbuilding collapse incidents in the recent past that havekilled several residents. It will help repair or redevelop 30,000 old and dilapidated buildings in the city.
Thepolicywillbeimmediately applicable for 669 dilapidated buildings, mostly in the island city, whichhave more than8,000 residents.
Thesebuildingsfallinthecategory of extremely dangerous structures that needtobedemolished.
Thepolicywillmakeitmandatory for owners to enter into an agreement with the tenants to secure the latter’s rights as well as assuring them alternative accommodation.
At the same time, it will enforce strict guidelines to determine dangerous buildings.
Civic chief Ajoy Mehta confirmedthedevelopmentandsaid: “We are bringing a new policy to maketheredevelopmentprocess transparentandobjective.Witha significantnumberofdilapidated buildings in the city, the policy will ensure redevelopment is taken up in cases where it is needed to and none of the interested parties are able to stall or old, dilapidated buildings in the city dilapidated structures need to be redeveloped immediately
unnecessarilydelaytheprocess.”
Often, tenants of the dilapidated buildings in Mumbai are unwilling to vacate their houses for fear of losing them after redevelopment.
There have been cases of tenants living in transit camps for a longtime,eventhoughthebuildingsarereadyandflatsaresoldin the open market.
A senior civic official said, “This condition has been mentioned in theIntimationof Disapproval (IOD), apermissiongiven by the BMC allowing for the developer for redevelopment. If theownersfailtomakeanagreement,thecivicbodywillnotissue a commencement certificate to redevelop the dilapidated structure. Once the structural audit indicates the building is extremely dangerous, owners will have to compulsorily notify
technical advisory committees, which will play a crucial role in deciding the nature of dangerous categories of dilapidated buildings in the city
the tenants by displaying this on the notice board.”
While landowners and developers rush to revamp old structures in order to get more Floor SpaceIndex(FSI),thenewpolicy makes it mandatory to conduct structural audits before declaring them dangerous. The move comesafteritwasobservedbuildings werecategorised as dangerous based on visual inspections and no scientific method.
A senior official said, “Even civic officials will now have to submitdetailsofmethodsusedby them while categorising the building as C1, C2 (dangerous structures that require major repairs and C3 (buildings that require minor repairs).”
Underthepolicy,theBMCwill introduce five new Technical Advisory Committeesofexperts for the suburbs and the island
city,whichwillplayacrucialrole in deciding the nature of dangerous categories for dilapidated buildings in the city. This will also help in a quicker resolution of disputes between tenants and owners over structural audits of their buildings, Currently, there isonlyonecommitteethatisburdened with all the disputes of dilapidated structuresinthecity. This has led to further delay in determining their condition.
Sanjay Chaturvedi, property lawyer, said, “There are more than 30,000 old buildings in the city.Ihavereceivedseveralcases wherein tenants have complainedthatthelandownershave declaredthestructuresas dilapidatedwithoutproperinspection. This policy will surely resolve such cases.” Officials confirmed the policy will soon be uploaded on the BMC’s website.