Mhada to spend 5,000 cr to redevelop 56 of its colonies

Mumbai: The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) has envisioned a Rs5,000-crore project to redevelop its housing colonies on its own, instead of letting private developers walk away with profits. 

    It will utilize portions of the sprawling housing societies to build 10,000 affordable homes after rehabilitating its tenants. 
    But housing industry sources are sceptical about Mhada's plan taking off, as tenants have got more lucrative offers from builders, including larger homes. 
    Last month, Mhada decided to start with redevelopment of a portion of the 62-hectare Tagore Nagar colony in Vikhroli. Mhada sources said they narrowed down on a 23-hectare parcel of Tagore Nagar. In the first phase, Mhada will redevelop 800 ground-level structures on six hectares and provide new 450 sq ft tenements to each family, the sources said. 
    Officials said the 56-odd Mhada colonies here can generate substantial affordable housing. "Private developers will be severely affected if a government agency redevelops the colonies. They are offering unworkable incentives to existing occupants,'' they said. 
    In some cases, officials said, builders offered five times the area occupied by a tenant and Rs5-10 lakh incentives. "Each builder tries to outbid the other and creates discord among residents of colonies. As a result, no development has taken place till date,'' they said. "The government has decided to develop the colonies on its own under section 33(5) of the development control rules (DCR), allowing permissible FSI of 1.25. 
    Mhada plans to develop the colonies by offering them to reputed contractors purely on a contractual basis. "The contractors must have suitable credentials to be able to execute the projects in a time-bound manner and must have sufficient financial credentials,'' said officials. Contractors who have defaulted with Mhada will be debarred from participating in the tenders. Occupants of tenements in these colonies will be given a fixed increase in carpet area (40-50%) and will be offered a new tenement with modern facilities. All occupants will be given identical benefits. 
    But construction industry sources said developers like Godrej Properties had signed agreements with tenants of Tagore Nagar and offered them 1,000 sq ft apartments, as against Mhada's 450 sq ft. 
    "Housing societies have also been offered a corpus of up to Rs30 lakh. Why would they agree to Mhada's proposal?'' they said.

Mhada decided to start with the redevelopment of a portion of Tagore Nagar colony in Vikhroli