‘Many more Adarsh-like projects in city’

The MCZMA was formed in 1998 to implement the CRZ notification of 1991 under which details of projects in CRZ areas have to be submitted in the stated format to the MCZMA for a go-ahead.

The 31-storey Adarsh society in Cuffe Parade is facing demolition as it did not get MCZMA’s sanction after the state UD Department in 2003 misconstrued a routine letter from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) as the green go-ahead for the project. Officials said that in the aftermath of Adarsh,they have received a barrage of complaints about such violations many amounting to similar “procedural lapses”.

State Environment Department Secretary Valsa Nair-Singh said about 25 such complaints have piled up with the department. “Within a month,we will constitute a panel with members from departments concerned such as BMC,MCZMA,town planning and UD Department to probe these complaints in addition to identifying all cases of CRZ violations in Mumbai,” she said,adding that the new CRZ notification 2011 require all states to submit a report on coastal norms violations within six months.

She pointed out that the massive number of CRZ violations in Mumbai would render it almost impossible for the panel to come up with its report within six months. “The two other coastal cities as large as Mumbai are Chennai and Vizag,but the scale of violations in Mumbai is expected to be much more than any other city in the country,” she said.

Some of the complaints received by the state Environment Department might turn out to be as high-profile as Adarsh. One such complaint has been filed by Walkeshwar’s Dani Sadan Cooperative Housing Society against a new sea-side construction behind their building. The complaint alleges that the 12-storey luxury residential tower by Earth Developers has come up barely a few metres from the sea. It alleges that the tower violates CRZ norms,which state that new constructions in CRZ II areas are allowed only on the landward side of existing buildings or roads.

Another complaint is about the lack of CRZ clearance for a slum redevelopment project by Ace Links developers on a plum Nariman Point plot next to the Manora MLA hostel.