Mumbai DP

1. 64 l BUILDOTECH l June ’15SSUSTAINABILITY
The Mumbai Development Plan (DP) 2034, an urban planning blueprint
has been strongly opposed by citizens including city planners and even
some politicians. Buildotech presents views of some of the prominent
design professionals and their suggestions.
Mumbai DP 2034–
Ills & Cures
A
ccording to the critics,
the recently scraped
Mumbai Development
Plan (DP) 2034 plan
had ignored ground
realities of the city. But, many
also appreciated the new FSI rules
proposed in DP to accommodate
the expected increase in Mumbai’s
population as both the earlier DPs
failed to plan for development
suitable to a growing population.
As of now, the state government
has asked for the revised
development plan within four
months taking into considerations
all the ambiguities, incorrect data
and other relevant details.
Need for liberal
development plan
Despite the fact that the
Mumbai DP 2034 offered some
very sane and urgently needed
The Brihanmumbai
Municipal Corporation,
which came up
with the Mumbai
Development Plan
(DP) 2034 says it was
made professionally to
achieve the goals of
growth, inclusiveness
and sustainability.
Whereas, architects
and town planners
have called the plan
“irrelevant” to the
needs and aspirations
of Mumbai residents.

2. June ’15 l BUILDOTECH l 65SUSTAINABILITY
changes, it ran into rough weather
for two reasons. Its criticism for
many “errors” and more importantly,
opposition to its policy departures.”
Pointing out that the cities
of Hyderabad and Ahmedabad
have benefited from liberal realty
norms, President of CEPT (Center
for Environmental Planning and
Technology) University and Director
at HCP Design Planning and
Management Pvt. Ltd, Ahmedabad,
Bimal Patel emphasized that the
departures proposed in the Mumbai
DP are in the correct direction.
“Urban plans in India have generally
failed. Mumbai’s planners are
learning, the hard way, that the
politics of planning is far more
important than its technical aspects.
Instituting reforms and making bold
departures is never easy. Good ideas
are not adopted simply because they
are good. For them to be adopted,
powerful people have to believe in
them.”
Patel expressed the hope that
Mumbai’s planners will use the
coming four months to engage with
key decision- and opinion-makers to
convince them of the merit of their
proposals—and not to reverse their
proposals. “Forsaking the new liberal
planning approach that its planners
are proposing would be a tragedy
for Mumbai,” he said. Hyderabad,
for instance, has done away with
the FSI norms and Ahmedabad has
liberalized them to facilitate high-
rise buildings, supported by modern
urban infrastructure, including mass
rapid transport and BRT. Ahmedabad
also has the unique partnership
among the administrators-politicians-
and planners which ensures the DP
works without any hitches.
Patel felt that Mumbai’s
planners had taken a “brave new,
liberal approach” to the city’s new
Development Plan (DP)-2034. They
had, for example, liberalized floor
space index (FSI) limits to dispel the
artificial scarcity created by earlier
plans. It rightly recognized that
FSI limits do not limit population
densities, but only limit floor
space consumption. It integrated
land use proposals with the city’s
transportation networks, simplified
FSI regulations to ease governance
and unshackle architecture.
“The development plan adopted
policies for more efficient land use,
abandoned the policy of reserving
specific plots in favour of a fairer
approach that distributes the cost of
creating public benefits more broadly
as also liberalized rigid zoning in
favour of mixed-use zoning. It also
proposed new regulations to provide
better accessibility for disabled
people.” he adds.
Correlate plan with
other authorities
The draft DP-2034 was an
attempt to simplify the development
in the city however, it excluded
major parts of Mumbai which came
under various other authorities’
viz. MMRDA, Port Trust, Extended
Suburbs, etc. and missed addressing
areas like Slums, Redevelopment of
Cessed / old dilapidated structures.
Veteran architect Premnath,
Founder & Principal architect of
design organization Prem Nath &
associates in Mumbai points out
that Port trust land amounts to close
to 1,500 acres in the heart of city
“Key opinion-makers
have to be engaged with,
educated and brought
on board. Sincere, but
misguided, experts have to
be convinced or isolated.
Vested interests have
to be exposed. Public
opinion has to be formed
in favour of good ideas by
engaging with the public.
This is political work. Urban
planning requires technical
as well as political
acumen.”
– Bimal Patel

3. 66 l BUILDOTECH l June ’15SSUSTAINABILITY
in South-Mumbai but, the said DP
didn’t consider the impact of the
ware houses, slums, commercial
spaces, workers & their housing
and a lot of junk space lying vacant
in this area. Likewise, mill lands in
Mumbai have been developed in
most haphazard manner, without
a proper planning for such lands
including. MHADA, BDD Chawls,
Corporations old vacant lands.
“The swanky Bandra-Kurla Complex
that started developing 30 years
ago is still under development
while, the surrounding areas have
mushroomed up much faster and in
a most unorganized manner. Similar
would be the case of the above
mentioned large land pockets if not
taken in account in the DP-2034.”
he adds.
Some of the ambiguities as per
Premnath include, the island city’s
coast line, about 40% land being
under the CRZ. DP 2034 had given
a blanket FSI enhancement without
considering the areas under the CRZ
– in-turn creating a conflict between
the DP and the CRZ. Salt Pan Lands
too were shown as developable with
New FSI while, these lands are not
under the State but the jurisdiction
of Central Govt. Similarly, the No
Development Zones in the City
were blindly demarcated with FSI
allowing commercial & residential
development. Instead, these could
have been marked as low density
developments with FSI of 0.5 or
1 for cottages, villas and low-rise
structures to maintain the sanctity
of these green areas. On the other
hand, he said, plan for the Arrey
Milk Colony seemed to have been
misunderstood by general public
as organized and developed green
space with some adventure activities
would have been beneficial.
“Variable FSI is good, however
one must have considered that
Mumbai is a densely populated
city and giving higher FSI near the
stations would only mean more
congestion near the stations.
Higher FSI will also mean high rise
structures, which shall be expensive
and not affordable. What one
needs is inexpensive housing close
to stations, so that a middle class
family is able to catch a train /
metro and go to work, affordably”
Premnath asserts.
As the said DP is planned for
high buildability the infrastructure
needs too should have been
addressed. With base FSI itself being
3 – development / construction
quantum would surely increased
however the roads, sewage systems,
water supply systems, remained
under planned. “DP 2034 didn’t
consider the traffic infrastructure,
internal commuting synchronization
and entry-exit points to the city.
What happens to the city which
has only a couple of entry-exit
points and the new ones are yet
being planned for more than two
decades, but not implemented, be it
the Panvel Airport, the road linkage
towards Nava-sheva or the city-side
exit to such linkages that are major
bottlenecks.” he states.
Premnath considers DP 2034
good in terms of the distribution
of FSI, simplification and clarity in
development and open spaces,
however it missed addressing some
pertinent issues such as the heritage
structures, the synchronization
between the wholesale markets,
planning for garbage disposal
and most importantly connecting
with the Mumbaikers. He said,
“Presently, 50% of Mumbai
population lives in slums and only
10% population is able to afford
living in this city Yet, Mumbai lacks
affordable housing & redevelopment
of dilapidated structures and since
last two Development Plans we
have not been able to provide any
unified thought in this matter. All
this resulted in the said draft DP
missing to achieve the trust of the
major population of the city.”
Define public
infrastructure
As architects and planners
design, based on the client brief
with a purview of the latent and
imminent needs, a development
plan too defines the requirement
of a city keeping in mind various
aspects such as climatic change,
waste management, infrastructure,
and urban development. These
guidelines give architects the
ability to make decisions based
on structured rules. With an
experience of working on numerous
international projects, renowned
Mumbai architect Reza Kabul feels,
the development plan for any place
should be designed keeping in mind
the growth for the next 100 years.
As he puts it, “The DP will create
transparency in the approval system
“The municipal corporation may be able to resolve smaller
issues in the four months time and might fail to address the
major issues requiring coordination with other authorities
like MMRDA, Port Trust, Rail Authorities, etc to prepare a
well inculcated development chart with fiscal components,
resources, budgeting and timelines.” – Premnath

4. June ’15 l BUILDOTECH l 67SUSTAINABILITY
and calculations and streamline
and further simplify the procedure.
However, the current transition
period has put several projects on
hold based on the uncertainty. The
sooner the Mumbai Development
Plan is concrete, the city shall move
out of its current standstill.”
According to him, the inception
of transit oriented development is
a successful model but, in case of
Mumbai, the transit infrastructure
should be planned in co-ordination
with the same. Instead of focusing
on increasing the FSI close to
stations, the government should
emphasize on the development of
public transit infrastructure. This
will prevent the need to cluster
around spaces such as stations. “If
they start developing infrastructure,
that is parallel to the railways, or
the highways, or an alternative to
either people will not consider the
congested areas with proximity to
the stations as the only alternative.
In this scenario the governments’
public transit infrastructure policy
is key rather than just an increase
in FSI. After decongesting the
spaces, an increase in FSI can be
acceptable.” he adds.
All the space that the
government is claiming for amenities
under this plan should be developed
and the amenities should be handed
over by the government to the public.
In the new DP there is a provision
which states that each plot must
leave a certain amount of amenity
space. Instead of handing it over to
the government, amenities should
be included in the development plan
itself. For instance, the government
has to make provisions for public
parking. If they are handing over
additional FSI, there needs to be
provision of extra parking under that
FSI which can be handed back to
the government for public parking
spaces. Kabul also points out that
development of certain areas of
the The Aarey Milk Colony, perhaps
the only dense green area within
the city limits might be a solution
to the unlawful encroachment and
slums that are currently in play in
that area. In addition, the DP 2034
notification stating that apartments
less than 50sqm in size fall under
the EWS because of its small
size and affordability by the segment
address the affordable housing
need.
Design a climate
responsive city
The world over, countries are
talking of climate responsive smart
cities. Mumbai sits on a coast line
and therefore it is urgent that the
proposed DP addresses the problem
of affordable housing, infrastructure
development in sync with the
population growth and the fast
changing climate to make it a climate
responsive city. It is extremely critical
that the DP 2034 is put into action
at the earliest.
Mumbai based Sandeep
Goswami, COO of Fountain Head-II
and Consultant of Science & Policy
of Climate Change, feels that the
overall mistakes in the DP made it fit
for review. But this has also severely
impacted real estate business and
prospects of planned growth. The
inadvertent mushrooming of 7000
illegal buildings in and around
Mumbai every year are exacerbating
the already creaking infrastructure
of Mumbai and unless corrective
measures are taken, shortage of
water, sanitation etc. would plunge
the livability index of the city
further.
Goswami finds merit in the DP
proposal of geographic distribution
of FSI instead of a uniform FSI but
recommends a systematic plan, so as
to decongest the city. The provision
should allow for infrastructural up
gradation, especially in the areas
with narrow roads and few open
spaces. According to him, the idea
of creating high-density residential
zones around stations is incorrect,
“The Mumbai
Development Plan 2014
– 2034 currently under
review is a completely
new approach to planning
system. Once on the right
lines, it will simplify a lot
of planning issues and
create uniform policies
for all, which will also
help in reducing the time
required for approvals.
Furthermore, it has been
in the draft phase and a
plan of such magnitude
does require additional
consideration before it
gets final.”
–Reza Kabul

5. 68 l BUILDOTECH l June ’15SSUSTAINABILITY
without proper understanding of the
public infrastructure of that particular
area. No setting aside of adequate
open spaces for public amenities
while allowing no-development
zones for residential purposes adds
to the mistake. He suggests increase
in FSI around stations via urban
design intervention that provides
multi-tiered hawking and parking
spaces to decongest the city. It would
also provide green spaces along the
railways with promenade and parks.
But, unless these are explicitly spelt
out, the outcome would be ugly and
inefficient tall buildings, only adding
to the mess Mumbai already is in. “It
is the removal of ambiguity around
calculations of FSI which is the
panacea for all ills. As for the term
non-development zone, this in itself
is unclear, particularly concerning
the mapping of existing land use and
proposals related to densification,
infrastructure and open spaces.” he
added.
Commenting on the missing
provision of affordable housing
in DP, Goswami said, “As long as
commercial consideration rules,
“affordable housing” will be an
oxymoron. Somewhere down the
line the “house” as a necessity of
every citizen got lost because they
became an ‘investment’ product.
Unless this mindset changes, the
most expensive real-estates would
never build for the poor.”
“DP2034 was that it did not take into account
representation of people from all strata of life and
experts from environment, health and safety fields.
It lacked deliberation among the experts, peers and
public. Instead of giving four months to correct the
mistakes, the plan should be discussed area wise in an
open forum and then the joint decision incorporated to
pass the final draft with the backing of the public.”
– Sandeep Goswami