After permits, BMC targets sops for builders

Several builders approach the civic commissioner seeking concessions for open spaces, parking spaces, open terraces, refuge floors, and front and side margins.

Just a day after it issued fresh guidelines for approvals to building projects in the city, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has now decided to stop granting concessions to developers because these sops are misused.

Senior officials, who did not wish to be named, confirmed to The Indian Express that a proposal for doing away with the discretionary powers of the municipal commissioner for granting such concessions was being readied. Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta has himself directed that these concessions be eliminated, a senior official said.

Several builders approach the civic commissioner seeking concessions for open spaces, parking spaces, open terraces, refuge floors, and front and side margins. Although development control regulations provide for the commissioner to exercise these discretionary powers and grant concessions in cases of hardship, some cases, where the builders misused such concessions to build more and benefitted unduly, had come to light over the past couple of years. This has led the civic body to tighten the norms.

The new Development Plan will also cap the extent of such concessions that can be granted. “This move will curb all kinds of misuse and create a more level- playing field,” a senior official said.

Mehta said: “The whole idea is to do away with this Santa Claus-like approach of granting concessions. We plan to get rid of most of the discretionary powers.”
The reform will reflect in Mumbai’s new development control regulations, the draft of which is expected to be ready by the end of February.

Besides curbing discretionary powers, the BMC also has plans to rationalise the regime for premium payment for various approvals and relaxations granted to building projects. “There is duplicity, multiplicity and ambiguity regarding certain premium payments. We plan to streamline this,” Mehta added.

Builders’ associations and Practicing Engineers, Architects and Town Planners Association (PEATA), for instance, have been complaining that calculations done by the BMC for open space deficiencies in a building project are often higher than the building’s total construction area. Premium is paid to the BMC for condoning such deficiency.

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Earlier on January 2, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had rolled out BMC’s new guidelines and manual for building approvals, which is aimed at cutting red tape and fast-track building approvals.

Sources said a new model for promoting construction of affordable housing in Mumbai, which is the country’s most expensive real estate market, was also under consideration.

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