‘62% of eastern waterfront to be open for Mumbaiites’
MUMBAI: Sixty-two per cent of the Mumbai’s eastern waterfront will be open for public, said Dr Bimal Patel, director of HCP Design, which has designed the revamp of the eastern waterfront between Colaba and Wadala. On Friday, Patel addressed students at a public lecture on the redevelopment of the city’s eastern waterfront.
He said, of the total area under redevelopment, 26% will be publicly accessible open spaces and gardens, as compared to 8% publicly accessible open spaces in the island city. While 36% of the land area will be public streets as compared to 17% of public streets in the island city.
“The port development is like a peripheral expansion of the island city. With 62% of the area open to the public, it will look radically different from the rest of Mumbai. The only reason it has more space under the public domain is because there is a scarcity elsewhere in the city,” he said.
Patel also specified that this number is excluding the plan to reclaim 93 hectares near Haji Bunder to create a central garden; which has been severely opposed by many Mumbaikars.
Patel also stressed that the plan is a win-win situation for both, the Mumbai Port Trust (MBPT), which owns the land and the citizens of Mumbai as this is the last parcel of land left to rejuvenate Mumbai.
He said that the eastern waterfront will become one of the most accessible areas in Mumbai with the upcoming Mumbai Trans Harbour Link, Cst-panvel highspeed corridor and the Metro-4a (Wadala-gpo).
“A carefully designed street network with public transit and adequate infrastructure will permit more floor space to be added in the future,” said Patel, stressing that there should not be needless worry about infrastructure, which is created over a period of time in any city. In December 2018, MBPT had released the plan for redeveloping 966 hectares of land between Colaba and Wadala.
Urban planners and experts had pointed out several loopholes in the plan. MBPT recently submitted a revised plan to the town planning department of the Maharashtra government which stated that it is looking at redevelopment of only 253 hectares of land.