Cities are interdependent
Recently I was in Mumbai for a few days, meeting Jockin Arputham, head of
Life in the fast lane – if it looks like we’re not moving, it’s because we aren’t
We were bouncing around from here to there, and Jockin was either regaling, persuading, cajoling, chiding, negotiating, wheedling, praising, and brainstorming (he does more or less all of these more or less all the time), via his bucket brigade of cell phones.
Jockin Arputham hard at work
Idly I picked up that day’s issue [October 8, 2007 – Ed.] of the Times of India, and read a series of pieces, placed adjacent to one another, that together represent an extraordinary demonstration of how, in cities, everything is connected to everything else, and in rapidly urbanizing or growing cities, everything comes back to land and property. Mumbai is about as big a city as there is – 18,000,000 people and rising – and when you are there, the contradictions and aspirations and squalor are well-nigh overwhelming. And they’re all in one issue of the local newspaper:
MUMBAI: In this age of high economic growth, it is not uncommon to hear of annual salaries of Rs 40 lakh. Some top executives and CEOs even earn that kind of money every month. But, every minute?
Hold your breath. In the last three months, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani increased his wealth by roughly Rs 40 lakh every single minute. Thanks to the rapid rise in stock prices of his company, his wealth is a staggering Rs 2,20,463 crore or $55.8 billion.
The elder Ambani is also close to becoming the planet’s richest individual. The men who staked their bets on businesses have come into incredible wealth.
Since January, the wealth of
With a booming economy comes high real estate prices – but they may not last forever:
Who will blink first?
Builders, Buyers Wait For The Other Side To Relent Amid Slump In Realty Mkt
Mumbai: It may seem like an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between builders and buyers. And who will blink first in coming weeks is the question on everyone’s mind amid an unprecedented slump in Mumbai’s residential real estate market.
Slowdowns in capital markets transcend national borders and thus have national implications:
According to property experts, the next three months, starting from the Navratri festival, will be extremely crucial for builders, who have seen sales of apartments dropping by up to 50% in 2007 as compared to last year. In fact, some leading developers have confessed in private that some of their projects registered “zero sales’’ between February and June this year.
Despite the slowdown, which is mainly due to the unaffordability factor and high interest rates on home loans, builders are holding on to their prices. Potential flat buyers, on the other hand, are deferring their decision as they expect the rates to drop. Some experts are of the view that a further 10-20% dip in flat prices cannot be ruled out.
In Powai, a developer has jacked up prices for his high end apartments from Rs 14,000 a sq ft to Rs 16,000 a sq ft. Similarly, another has increased the price in his Malad project from Rs 6,300 to Rs 6,700 a sq ft. A developer setting up a project near the Jogeshwari-Vikhroli link road recently hiked the price from Rs 6,800 a sq ft to Rs 7,100 a sq ft.
“These developers are trying to send a warning to flat buyers: buy now or expect the prices to rise even further,’’ said a market source. Whether the purchaser bites the bullet or not will be seen only in the next few months.
In the last three years, the property market has gone up by almost two to three times across the country. According to experts, the prices have reached a level where it looks difficult for further appreciation and there is now resistance from buyers.
Such values mean land is valuable:
Tilak’s chawl sold to developer
MUMBAI: The city’s march towards redevelopment is set to bring another landmark down. The historic Keshavji Naik chawl in Girgaon, where Lokmanya Tilak started the first ’sarvajanik’ Ganeshotsav in 1893 to mobilise opinion and rally support for
Ganesha, the god who removes all obstacles
The cluster of seven ground-plus one structures on
A crore is ten million. Rs. 15 crore is about $3.75 million.
While acknowledging that it was a historic building, the charity commissioner has allowed the sale on condition that the developers set aside 15,000 square feet and build a community hall for the Ganeshotsav tradition to continue.
Tilaks’ chawl
Thus we have a flexible use of inclusionary zoning – spot zoning to increase density but a commitment of space back for the original, historical use.
In an order, a copy of which is with the TOI, Mumbai’s joint charity commissioner N V Deshmukh has approved the sale under the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950.
Earlier, chawl’s 150 tenants had sought to purchase the property to redevelop it on their own terms. In the sealed bidding, the tenant association, with an offer of Rs three crore, was the highest bidder. But the charity commissioner felt the property could fetch a higher price and called for a fresh open bidding process. The tenants moved the court against this decision but lost the case.
One wonders what was going on backstage as this was happening.
Last month, the tenant association upped its offer to Rs eight crore but the new entrant on the scene, Tulja Bhavani Developers, surpassed the amount by a long shot, offering Rs 15 crore to win the bid. The developers have paid 25% of the amount to the Trust and the rest has to be paid before December 5.
In other words, the new developers have already paid Rs. 3.75 crore, or more than the residents’ original bid.
The charity commissioner’s order said the buildings are old and dilapidated.
They probably are.
The unstable condition of the structures allows them to be replaced with high-rises with additional FSI under section 33 (7) of the Development Control rules.
Obviously there is a well-established body of law governing development and redevelopment.
“For us, as of now, it means just change of ownership. We were paying rent to the Trust, now we will pay to the new owner,” said a chawl-resident, who is also an office bearer of the tenants association.
Asked if the developer would get consent of 70% of the residents - a pre-requisite for redevelopment - the member said, “As long as our requirements are met, we have no problems giving our consent.”
Clearly the law gives the residents very substantial standing. That standing varies by circumstances:
Residents upset after court order on heritage caves
Mumbai: Officials of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), who surveyed the Jogeshwari Caves on Saturday in order to clear the heritage monument of encroachments, are preparing to face opposition at other sites in the city.
FUTURE TENSE: Those staying near the caves said they do not object to the conservation plan but feared the move could jeopardise their livelihood
Lakhs of people who live in the Mahakali-Mandapeshwar and the
The residents said the structures, which lie directly above the monument, should be shifted, but the clean-up plan of the surrounding 100 metres should be abandoned.
In the Middle Ages, half of
Gumpha (cave) resident Ramkumar described the situation as volatile. Residents of the area wanted to know why their shanties were allowed to proliferate over the last 40 years and why they were given voters’ identity and ration cards.
Domicile, even if informal and illegal, gives standing. So does continued occupancy or possession of the land.
They said they have no objection to the authorities wanting to protect a monument that is a national treasure, but the lives and livelihoods of legal residents should not be jeopardised.
Narasimhan has promised to meet the residents again next week. “We are yet to receive a copy of the high court order asking us to clear the settlement. Once we receive it next week we will be able to chalk out a plan of action as to how these encroachments can be removed and how the residents will be rehabilitated,’’ Narasimhan said.
Fights over land and property are not merely judicial, they are likely extra-judicial:
Vikhroli firing: Cops probe property dispute angle
Mumbai: The police suspect that the death of Sunil Maghade—supervisor of a security agency—at Vikhroli on Saturday could be the fallout of a property dispute. The shooting was the first in the city after police informer Sudesh Shetty was killed at Nirmal Nagar in July.
NO LEADS IN
Being the main witness in the case, Ahire, who was treated at
The crime branch is now probing the property dispute angle in a bid to get to the root of the matter. Sources said Maghade was interested in buying a disputed property in the vicinity.
There’s a connection among jobs, land, and homes:
CM asks mill owners to provide homes to workers
Mumbai: Chief minister [of the state of
Chief Minister Deshmukh
The union leaders demanded a separate employment exchange for their wards to get jobs in malls and other institutions coming up on mill lands. They also asked for a quota in licence system for taxis and auto rickshaws.
Auto-rickshaw, basically a three-wheeled Vepsa
Then there is the inescapable need:
50% malnourished kids found to have contracted TB
Mumbai: A new and disturbing aspect of
Child with tuberculosis
Tuberculosis is directly related to hygiene, and to sanitation, and to housing. The very first epidemiological studies were done on tuberculosis in 1850’s
According to government figures, around 8,321 malnutrition-related infant deaths were recorded in 2003-2004; it was 8,003 in 2004-05 and 7,700 in 2005-06. However, the Dr Abhay Bang-led panel set up to study malnutrition and suggest remedies to the government, had said the administration was grossly under-reporting figures. It charged that 1.6 lakh [160,000 – Ed.] children died of malnutrition-related causes every year in the state [Just
Among the many challenges of improving cities is simply this – compared with rural areas, cities are enormously more complex ecosystems. Everything is connected to everything else, and the bigger the city, the more connections there are, and the more immediate and stark the contrasts and linkages.
Mumbai,
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