MHADA eyes housing stock from projects
Facing land scarcity this year, the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority is eyeing housing stock that was supposed to be generated from several redevelopment projects of the city. However, in its new government resolution, the urban development department allowed developers to pay a monetary premium instead of housing stock.
The move has not gone down well with top officials who were expecting more housing stock to be utilised in the upcoming MHADA lotteries. The MHADA lottery this year has nearly 800 houses to offer. These flats are just leftovers from previous lotteries and are not newly constructed. This clearly shows that the authority is hunting for more land to construct flats to offer in future lotteries.
Currently, MHADA is expecting huge housing stock from Patrachawl redevelopment project in Goregaon. The project would shell out more than 2,000 flats for MHADA to offer them in the upcoming lotteries. Unfortunately, the project is under the scanner of the state government after serious lapses were noted in the project and can be stalled at any given point of time.
In addition to this, the housing body is expecting a massive unit of housing stock from the Bombay Development Directorate chawl redevelopment projects. According to sources, MHADA will soon be announced as the planning authority of the project which will make it easier to issue various permissions for the structure. The entire cost of the BDD chawl redevelopment project has gone up to Rs 20,000 crore.
The state government recently sanctioned modifications in the Development Control Rules (DCR) giving a major respite to over 2,00,000 residents of 56 colonies of MHADA. The revamp of these colonies had stalled due to one of the clauses of DCR 33 (5). The clause restricted developers from bidding for the redevelopment as it demanded housing stock instead of a monetary premium.
The state government issued a Government Resolution (GR) which stated that the Floor Space Index (FSI) has been exceeded up to 4 in case of plots having area of 4000 square meter and above, whereas plots up to 4,000 square metre will get FSI up to 3 after paying a monetary premium.
Originally, developers undertaking the redevelopment of old MHADA buildings were required to shell out either a monetary premium or a certain portion of the newly-created housing stock. However, in 2010, MHADA decided to end the practice of accepting a premium and made it compulsory for any developer wanting to redevelop a MHADA building to share housing stock. Due to this, developers stepped back from the redevelopment projects since shelling out housing stock left builders with lesser profit.