In a breather to six realty majors,the Bombay High Court has stuck down the notices issued by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to their projects constructed under the parking FSI policy. These include luxury residential projects like DB Realtys Orchid Crown at Prabhadevi,Indiabulls Sky Forest at Jupiter Mills and Sky Suites at Elphinstone Mills,the proposed 117-storey World One Tower by Lodha at Shrinivas Mills,Kohinoor Square at Kohinoor Mills in Dadar and Palais Royale at Shreeram Mills in Worli. These were the first few projects that were approved under the BMCs policy of allowing developers a maximum FSI of 4 if they construct a public parking lot on their plot and hand it over to the BMC. The policy,once enforced in August 2009,resulted in a spate of projects where the parking lots were as high as 15 storeys so that the developers could get the extra FSI and construct 50-storey high-rises. Municipal commissioner Subodh Kumar then issued a circular revising the policy to limit the height of the parking lot to two basement and ground plus four storeys. In the above six cases,the commencement certificates (CCs) had been issued before revising the rules. The BMC issued show-cause notices to all these projects under Section 51 of the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning (MRTP) Act asking the developers why the BMC should not revoke their CC unless they modified their plans in keeping with the revised rules. The court held that the policy cannot be revised through a mere circular and that the state government must amend the Development Control Regulations (DCR) in order to bring about any change in the rules. State government officials confirmed that they would be issuing the amended rules soon. While at first the BMC circular said the number of basements should be limited to two,the commissioner has recently decided to increase it to three. He added a new category of light commercial vehicles (80 sq m slots) to the existing parking category of cars (50 sq m slots) and buses (120 sq m slots), said a senior government official,adding that these revisions wont be valid until the DCR is amended. The official added that of the six cases,projects where construction was at an advanced stage would get further respite and the builders may not have to pay the premium for the incentive FSI as required under the new rules. The official said under Section 51 of the MRTP Act,no such order. shall be passed after these operations have substantially progressed. This decision is expected to particularly benefit Kohinoor Square and Palais Royale as in both cases,construction has been carried out far beyond the stipulated four floors.
