Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has formulated a policy that will make it easier for the residents to undertake redevelopment of old cessed buildings damaged in fire mishaps.
The policy, formulated after a communication from the state housing department and the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) on October 10, 2022, will allow reconstruction of such buildings by its owner/residents.
Complete demolition of the building after obtaining no objection certificate (NOC) from the MHADA (as the Repair and Reconstruction Board under MHADA looks after maintenance of cessed buildings) and fire report from the civic fire department as well as collapse report from civic and fire authorities will be mandatory for the reconstruction under the policy.
In case of cessed structures, the existing tenant list shall be certified by the MHADA office concerned, while in case of non-cessed structures, the existing tenant list shall be certified by the ward office concerned. The proposal shall be for rehousing of the existing tenants only and no sale component shall be allowed.
The plot area needs to be less than 300 square metre and the abutting road needs to be a minimum nine metre-wide, according to the policy.
Most of the old buildings that will be covered under the policy have wooden frames and high chances of catching fire. There are over 16,000 cessed buildings.
Anil Diggikar, vice-president of MHADA said, “When an old building catches fire, there are many difficulties for reconstruction and we had requested the BMC to look into the issue.” The proposal was cleared by the authorities and the policy was issued on December 7.
The proposal said that the MHADA in its letter had requested the BMC to allow repairs amounting to reconstruction in respect of buildings gutted in fire accidents instead of insisting on reconstruction under Regulation 33(6) of Development Control and Promotion rules 2034.
In the letter, a fire accident in a four-storeyed building on Abdul Rehman Marg in Masjid on August 3, 2019 was mentioned. The area of the plot is 290.97 square metre, with the consumed built-up area of 1,366.10 square metre. The building had 13 residential flats and 18 non-residential tenants, totaling 31 units. If reconstruction under Regulation 33(6) of DCPR was insisted, it would not be possible to re accommodate all the tenants in the said reconstructed building.
The MHADA further cited that the approval granted by the then municipal commissioner, Ajoy Mehta, on June 14, 2017 in another case, wherein due to genuine human problem and since there was no sale component, approval was granted to the demolished building under repairs amounting to reconstruction.
Following the communication, the then civic chief had directed to formulate a policy for such cases, however, it could not materialised.
Soon after Diggikar’s letter, BMC commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal asked officials concerned to formulate a policy for 100% repairs amounting to reconstruction.
The civic officials said the matter was discussed with stakeholders at zonal level of BMC. Following which, general policy guidelines were proposed for allowing repairs amounting to reconstruction.