‘Will preserve eco-sensitive areas in NDZ and salt pan’

After public outcry over the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) plan to use the city’s No Development Zones (NDZ) and salt pan lands to construct affordable housing, the civic body has come out with a clarification that it will preserve the eco-sensitive areas in both these zones.

While the BMC aims to create one million new affordable homes across the city, it will construct them on 2,100 hectares of NDZ land and 260 hectares of salt pan lands. While doing so, it will protect forest land and Coastal Regulation Zones (CRZ) spread across 1,747 hectares of salt pan lands and 10,351.59 hectares of NDZ, municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta said on Friday.

While the civic body has admitted that it will not be able to tackle the land prices, which is the costliest factor in estate purchase in the city presently, Ramanath Jha, official on special deputation for the Development Plan 2034 (DP) said, “We have done the best we can by increasing FSI. When more construction can happen on the available space, the per unit cost of the houses will decreases.” The FSI available to affordable housing is presently 4.0, as opposed to 2.0 for normal residential construction.

While the BMC is banking on contribution from Slum Redevelopment (SRA), cessed redevelopement, co-operative housing societies, Mhada development, Mhada redevelopment, and space from the open market for meeting its ambitious target of creating one million affordable homes, it has also linked the scheme to Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.