Only vertical growth an urban planning disaster

With the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Wednesday proposing uniform Floor Space Index (FSI) of 2, paving the way for more high-rises to come up in the city, urban planners and experts said that increasing FSI without encouraging surplus infrastructure may turn out to be a disastrous step for urban planning.

In BMC’s draft Development Plan (DP) 2034 for the city, the body had on Wednesday proposed a uniform FSI of 2 for residential purposes and FSI of 5 for commercial purposes with an aim to provide more housing and to generate employment by creation of business.

Commenting on the matter, Ajay Chaturvedi, chief executive officer of Accommodation Times, a bi-monthly magazine on real estate said, “The government may generate more employment and business if this proposal is approved, but what about the density in terms of population on a particular plot increasing with the increase in FSI ” He further added, “BMC has to push for surplus infrastructure if it is giving surplus FSI and if that is not done then it should freeze policies that promote increasing density.”

Mr Chaturvedi added that granting of surplus FSI leads to the construction of more houses. But now, with more FSI the city would have a higher density in terms of household per hectare as compared to the situation with a lower FSI.

Also, when compared with the infrastructure, the civic body is not offering extra in terms of extra roads, open spaces or other amenities in the surrounding areas. Hence, by granting more FSI the BMC would make the plots more densely crowded than it currently is, which could be disastrous for urban planning.

Housing activist Chandrashekhar Prabhu said, “The government should not give surplus FSI with an aim to generate more housing, but with an aim to increase the sizes of the existing houses which will tackle the problem of density on plots and not make a mess out of urban planning.”

However, a few experts disagree that proposing more FSI will make things worse. “The additional FSI’s construction will take at least six to seven years to become a reality and have more density. The infrastructure of today and at that time will surely increase in terms of transportation. However, the civic body has to work on water supply and power as they are interconnected with additional FSI,” said Gulam Zia, executive director, Knight Frank India.

What is FSI FSI is the ratio of a building’s total floor area to the size of the piece of land upon which it is built. Earlier the total FSI in the island city and suburbs was 1.33 and 1 respectively, which according to the proposal in DP 2034 has been increased to 2.