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MUMBAI'S DESIRE FOR HEIGHT!!!


Mumbai's real estate is among the most expensive in the world.
Partly, of course, this is a result of geographical factors - the city is limited by natural boundaries of
sea, hills and marshland. Partly it
is due to subversion of the real estate market by well-connected builders. But, above all, it is a
function of artificially constrained supply. Mumbai has always been the most vertical of India's cities;and it should perhaps be more vertical still, in order to help ease
its yawning deficit in floor space.
Mumbai today has fewer square metres of floor space available per resident than almost all other
major world cities. A more vertical city would not only ease
that constraint, but also make commuting in Mumbai less of a
nightmare; today, because of the
lack of availability of housing units close to their workplaces,
Mumbai's residents have among the longest average travel times in the world.
It, therefore, could be argued that the ministry of environment and forests should look
favourably upon the Maharashtra government's demand that it ease certain restrictions on
vertical building that it has imposed. In particular, the MoEF
requires the height of a building to be linked to the width of a
road - for example, a 60-metre high building must be on a 30-metre wide road. The MoEF's logic is that this is necessary to reduce congestion. However, the consequences of such rigid rule-making are severe. While such an
approach does little to address problems like congestion through better traffic planning
and management, it also reduces the ability of a city to meet its inhabitants' demands for more
space - and actually stresses infrastructure further as people
commute longer and longer distances.
In any case, the question must be
asked: why, precisely, is the MoEF creating rules for what surely
should be a decision taken at a more local level? The ministry is
insufficiently accountable to the
people of Mumbai for this restriction to come from it. In
addition, it is far from clear why a city-planning decision should be made by a ministry that's
supposed to look at
environmental considerations. As
it is, the ministry's reputation for delays in clearances is not
enviable - not entirely its fault,given the number of such
clearances required and the pace at which they are being applied
for. Nevertheless, the MoEF has sought to increase its domain
and Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan is right to point out that Mumbai's development and its people's aspirations for more space cannot be held hostage to a single ministry's concerns.
In general, decisions on how vertical or not a city should be
are better left to local authorities, which should be made more
accountable to the people of the city they supervise. Some cities,
like Delhi, may manage to expand more horizontally. Others, like Mumbai, may need to go vertical.
There is no one-size-fits-all method. The Centre could frame
model guidelines on such matters, but should ideally allow
the local authorities to take a more considered view
depending on specific conditions on the ground.