Mumbai: Maharashtra today junked an ambitious urban land use and redevelopment plan drafted for Mumbai by its civic body after five years of consultations with all stakeholders.
With its emphasis on vertical growth, the Mumbai Development Plan 2015-2034 drew criticism from environmentalists, architects, urban planners and others after it was unveiled on February 16.
Anchored around a suggestion to raise Mumbai’s floor space index – ratio of the permissible built-up area to the plot area – to 8 from the current 1.33 for the city and 1 for the suburbs, the buzz was the draft plan would convert Mumbai into “Gotham city”.
Gotham is the mythical burgh of super-tall high-rises where comic-book hero Batman lives.
Strewn with boo-boos like listing the seminal Jahangir Art Gallery as a veterinary hospital and plagued by allegations of pandering to the wish-list of the influential builder lobby, the draft plan has been binned. A fresh one will be presented for consultation after four months.
The draft plan was criticised for indiscriminately doing away with open green spaces and creating mega opportunities for builders. There were also glaring errors in the way the city was mapped.
“Iconic heritage buildings and architectural landmarks like the Art-Deco buildings lining the seaside boulevard of Marine Drive, or the city Town Hall which houses the Asiatic Society, to the 16th century Mount Mary Basilica in suburban Bandra had been struck off the land use map,” said Nikita Nirody, a Mumbai-based architect.
Rattled by the criticism, BJP chief minister Devendra Fadnavis set up a three-member committee on April 6 to review the plan.
After a cabinet meeting today, Fadnavis announced that the panel had suggested that it would be difficult to revise the old plan.
“The DP (development plan), in its present form, was not acceptable because of the mistakes that were seen in it,” he said at a news conference.
The state cabinet had, therefore, decided to scrap the plan and ask the civic body to draft a new one, he added.
“The cabinet has decided to accept the recommendation of the committee to ask the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to prepare a fresh DP in four months by rectifying all mistakes in the present one…. After the DP is prepared, BMC has also been directed to seek suggestions and objections,” Fadnavis said.
Although the draft plan was drawn up by the BMC under the watch of ally Shiv Sena, the blunders in it had become associated with the BJP in public perception. The Sena, which has been running the BMC, had smartly dissociated itself from the plan.
“They joined the chorus criticising the DP and disengaged themselves from taking ownership of what was essentially their baby. Instead, we were left holding it, that too at a time when BMC elections are coming up in a few months,” said a BJP MP from Mumbai.
The BMC elections are due in February 2017.
