Sample response to DP of MCGM

This was given to me by a like- minded friend- I have read through it and it appears ok.

To,                                                                                                                                    Date:

The Chief Engineer - Development Plan

5th Floor, Municipal Head Office, Annex Building

Mahapalika Marg, Fort, Mumbai-400 001

Subject: Suggestion /Objections and Request for Hearing for the Proposed Draft Development Plan for Mumbai 2014-34.

No. ChE/32596/DP/GEN/dtd 25.2.2015

Dear Sir,

We have taken studied the proposed Draft Development Plan and we list our Suggestions Objections as stated below.

FSI - We note with concern that FSI has been increased to a base of 2.5 with a maximum of 8.This huge leap will see further densification in already crowded areas. There is no proportionate increase in physical and social infrastructure. Most existing roads are not wide enough to carry the load of this increasedFSIand will lead to further traffic congestion

Suggestion - An increase in FSI by even 1 implies that the entire footprint of the city has been doubled. Hence there should be subsequent doubling of open spaces, health care, education, water supply and sanitation facilities etc. Higher FSI should be allowed only to the plot abutting the required road width provided all other amenities are provided for.

The increase in FSI will not necessarily mean affordable housing as majority of the city's population lives in slums or small tenements. The proposal to reduce the existing reservation of 20% of area for EWS housing to only 10% will bring no relief to this section. Further the demand for housing, apart from EWS, is for smaller apartments like 1BHK or 2BHK. This blind increase in FSI throughout the city will only lead to an increase in built up area in the higher income and luxury segment.

Suggestion - Maintain the reservation for EWS at 20%. . FSI should be based on the existing population density of each area. Further, steps should be taken to ensure that each planning sector has a percentage of housing for smaller , affordable apartments.

InfrastructureThe standard for educational and health facilities have been reduced. There was a need to increase this,not diminish the ratio. Schools which have come up in the past couple of decades do not have sufficient area for playgrounds. Whatever is available is concreted to double up as a parking space for school buses. Children spend a major part of 15 years in schools. Lack of open spaces in educational institutions affects theirhealth and growth.Affordable health facilities too are minimal. Most multi speciality hospitals are too expensive and smaller ones are crammed into apartments in housing complexes. There needs to be dedicated space for these two amenities.

 Health Amenity standards are reduced to 0.385sqm per person from 0.83 -1.28sqm per person.

Suggestion - Provision of adequate health care facilities is the duty of the local government and hence reservations specifically for municipal dispensaries/swasth chowky, municipal hospitals and municipal trauma centres should be demarcated in the proposed land use.

Education: Education Amenity standards are reduced to 1.37sqm per person from 3.58sqm per person.
Suggestion - Provision of adequate primary educational facilities is the duty of the local government and hence reservations specifically for schools should be demarcated in the proposed land use.
Ensure each school has a playground accessible to all children during the day and evenings. Covered play areas can be counted. The overall provision should be 2sqm/capita of population.

FSI for Open Spaces. There is no need to provide FSI of 3.5 for areas marked as open spaces. This will lead to possible misuse in the future. This should be reduced to an absolute minimum. Such spaces only require basic facilities like toilets or a basic office.

Open Spaces- The ratio of open spaces provided is dismal.  Traffic Islands, Intertidal areas of beaches, promenades, private layout RG (Cusrow baug) are included in public open spaces. Natural areas such as Mangroves, Mud Flats, National Parks, Creeks, Private Gymkhanas, Swimming Pools etc. are clubbed with the available Open Space to meet  standards. This is trickery with number. Large urban green inaccessible areas such as Raj Bhawan, Doongarwadi (Tower of silence), JJ Hospital, BARC, TISS, Aarey colony, Film city, KEM Hospital, Nehru Science Centre, AAI receiving station, IIT are proposed to be made accessible and counted under open spaces.The layout open space in residential development has been reduced to 10% as against DCR 23 of the DP 1991, which suggests RG of 15% to 25%.There is a further diminution of open space available to the public as the parking areas, electric substations, storage of harvested rain water, grey water harvesting plants, sewage treatment plant etc. are permitted below open spaces in residential development. (The DCR 1991 was amended to state that parking spaces and basements are not allowed under reservedOpen Space).

Suggestion - Health benefits of green spaces are clearly proven, particularly for the lower income groups. The DP should have a clear strategy to increase actual, usable open spaces.There must be at least one small park (between 500 and 1,000 sq. m.) within 500m of every residence, and at least one large park (exceeding 1,000 sq. m.) within 1 km of every residence in the city. Layout open spaces in residential development should be clearly marked and existing 15%-25% should be maintained.
Aarey Milk Colony-Aarey is shown to be a Residential Commercial zone with plans to make it a major growth hub.

Suggestion - The no development zone designation of Aarey should be made further stringent and be marked as a centralprotected green area or as open space.

NDZ areas. It is alarming that nearly 17000 acres of NDZ areas are set to lose this status. These are ecologically sensitive areas and important as a defense mechanism to natural calamities and greatly contribute in ecological services. Areas like Madh island, creeks, mangroves, mudflats etc are very important assets of Mumbai

Suggestion - All NDZ areas should be protected and if opened then only be proposed as openspaces

Heritage Structures - The Draft Development Plan (DRDP) 2014- 2034 is an attempt to delete protection of nearly 1000 buildings, sites and precincts i.e. 70% of the about 1488 total listed and published heritage buildings, sites and precincts in Greater Mumbai through an act of omission.

Out of 1995 notified list, one third of the heritage structures including Grade I, II, III sites and precincts are missing from the land use plan. 116 buildings, sites and precincts have been deleted and 35 buildings, sites and precincts altered from the 1995 Notified List of 633 buildings, sites and precincts .DRDP further deletes all of 7 Textile Mill Heritage buildings, sites and precincts from the 2002 Notified Addition, 24 Agiary Sites from the 2002 Notified Addition of Parsi Fire Temples in Greater Mumbai and 7 precincts including Marine Drive precinct deleted from April 1995 published addition. Almost all of the 894 Sites are missing from the Proposed Heritage list published in July 2012.

The SDCR regulation will be applicable to only those buildings as marked on the Land Use plan according to SDCR 6.1. This would mean that if there is an error in display of heritage site on the Development Plan sheets it would automatically mean deletion of reservation under heritage structure.                                   

Suggestion - Incorporate all the listed Heritage Buildings and precincts in the Development plan and show the mandatory 100 M regulation zone near all the Heritage Sites on the PLU. The proposed new Heritage List should also be incorporated.

Grade I and Grade III and Precincts have been completely removed out of the purview of the MHCC.
Heritage precincts and sites from Grade III have been allowed redevelopment up to 30m in the Development plan without the approval of the MHCC. This would virtually destroy all the heritage precincts in the City.                                                                                                                                                       

Suggestion - All Heritage structures, be it Grade I, II, III and the precincts, should be demarcated in the PLU and the redevelopment should be only done with the permission of the MHCC. The 30m height is arbitrary and will destroy the nature of the heritage precinct.The Heritage list should be incorporated in the SDCR document. All building modification/development permissions should be referred to the Heritage Committee and the Municipal Commissioner should take due note of the recommendations.

Safety -Marginal setback as mentioned in section 18.3.1 allows set back of only 3 m for building height 70 m and above. These high-rise buildings will not allow fire engine movement around the building during disaster.

Suggestion -  Minimum set back of 9m on ground should be given on all 4 sides to ensure fire safety for high-rise buildings. This should be provided irrespective of other mandatory fire fighting equipment to be provided in high rise buildings.

We will further supplement our issue with data at the hearing. We request you to consider our Suggestions/Objections and grant us a hearing at the earliest.

Yours sincerely,

Name-

Address

Phone

Email

The Parlekar and DP

There is a lot of discussion about the DP and its implications on South Mumbai and Aarey. I want to focus on the problems that are coming for Parlekars.

Praja Foundation along with UDRI have come up with a good handbook (more like a workbook) to help citizens arrive at some conclusions about the DP. The DP, if you see, is a large complex document. Further one will have to do much secondary research to put the data, dp plans in perspective and come to some conlcusion about what can happen to a particular area. This is possible only for persons with good hold on numbers and domain knowledge about urban and town planning. So here it is- it is not possible for even an educated intelligent Parlekar to respond to the DP without spending a good few days understanding the DP. Anyway, I have tried..........

Mapping of the KEast

GIS has been used for mapping. An age-old problem is clubbing Vile Parle and Andheri together- areas extremely diverse in culture and all dimensions. But that is another story.

Overall
WRT the DP- as it is KEast is below standard with respect to every facility such as health, education, recreation, open space, transport and waste management. The DP sets out no plan to set right these problems.

FSI
Now the flight corridor areas have a height restriction.  Almost all open spaces in Vile Parle East are encroached by one or the other organisation. The DP states no plans to acquire new open areas or develop them in a time-bound manner.

Waste management-
All our liquid

Development plan and number of objections

There are reports that the number of letters of objection received by Municipality regarding the next DP is just 15 thousand. As the population of Mumbai is in several lakhs, the MCGM says that this number of objections is miniscule and wants to go ahead with the development plan as it is. This is a case of gross mis- interpretation.

MCGM has asked for letters of opinion and not votes. Each letter represents the opinion of several persons; it is possible that each family, institution has written their objection in one letter. The letter also represent the opinion of persons who care, have understanding of the matter at hand. They also have the time and sophistication to pen their thoughts and send them to municipality. So their opinion carries weight and is not just a number.  If 15thousand have objected to the DP the true numbers should be taken as being nearer a lakh or so. This is the statistic also used in 'head of the household surveys' of population or health care matters. This is sufficient reason to have a re-think of the DP.

Basically asking for opinion on a document that is erroneous and full of vague approximations is a insult to the thinking and hard working public of Mumbai city. At least have the decency to produce a decent error- free document for re-view; then the MCGM can deliberate about citizens opinions. Do we pay the MCGM to turn in shoddy work like this? Instead of asking for opinion on this piece of rag- bag stupidity, they should fine the officials and surveyors concerned for doing such a poor job. 

PLASTIC BAGS

Plastic bags harm the environment in many ways. But practical problem is- forgetting is the reason many Parlekars have to fall back on taking a plastic bag from the shopkeepers. So Shruti and I shared an idea in our meeting: Why not remember for other Parlekars?

I collect all plastic bags that I get during shopping and clean them. Periodically I give them to my bhaji wala. He is very happy to get them and gives to the customers. Shruti also has been doing the same thing. So if any Parlekar forgets to get his/ her bag, our plastic bag can save the day. Re-using the plastic bags can reduce the environmental impact to a great extent. And the bhaji wala is happy as he gets sturdy bags of all sizes- so different customers' needs can be met.

This thing can be done by many Parlekars. Even if we use cloth bags, it is useless if we keep forgetting them and buying new ones all the while. So we can start giving plastic bags to the shop keepers, thus reducing the need for new plastic bags and reducing burden on environment.

Paryavaran mitra

We have now formed a small group of like- minded Parlekars and called it 'Parle paryavaran mitra'. It is just a group- not an organisation or institution. We meet up to discuss environment related issues- share our ideas.

We communicate through our e-group and whatsapp group. Upon discovering so many like-minded Parlekars we all are feeling very happy and as if we are in a 'wadi' with all people around us exactly understanding us without any explanation from our side.

We welcome many other Parlekars to join.......paryavaran mitra

The waste- busters

The atmosphere is serious- scholarly, the voices are clear, arguments very respectful and logical- at regular intervals there are grunts of approval and sighs of wonder........the topic of this passionate discussion being 'waste management'. Welcome to the life of waste busters!

These people fantasise about waste. They surprise bhaji walas, sugarcane wallas  by asking them for peels and baggasse. They can go to the extent of buying a separate mixer to mince the wastes- so microbes have it easy to break. They think nothing of getting up on Sunday mornings for a walk to the nearest cowshed to get their weekly supply of slurry to accelerate the compost. By the time they reach their 40s they have heard of Dandelar, Belvalkar, Excel industry and done the rounds of almost all sugarcane juice shops, municipality offices and know where good cow slurry can be sourced from. A true waste buster, however does not talk about his/ her passion- unless another kindred soul is spotted. And so we three, Anuradha, myself and Aniruddha form a group of waste-busters as we went to check out Aniruddha's home waste management kit.

All ordinary Parlekars pinch their noses, shut their eyes and generally screw their faces at the mention of waste. It is only the outstanding Parlekar who actually gets excited at its mention. Last Saturday we were at the home of one such Parlekar, Mr Aniruddha Deshpande. Passionate about composting and totally in love with environment he has been studying composting for the last decade. He has spent hours thiking, dreaming, designing, testing, talking, making kits for composting wet waste.

The advantage of his system over vermi-composting is- can be kept covered, takes very less space and time, is not at all fastidious, the microbes remain safe unlike earthworms which could be eaten by rats and one can put all variety of 'wet stuff' cooked,spicy, oily anything- so thats a big advantage. Now I want to see if this system can absord sanitary napkins- a highly hazardous pollutant but very necessary for any woman's good health and hygiene.

His invention using anaerobic waste composting in a double bucket system is really very good and appears to be effective. It is described in his brochure in my previous blog. Really there was no smell, no nuisance surrounding it at all. And it can even be kept indoors- an elegant solution for balcony- less Parlekars. This method can be adopted by all of us- put an end to transporting wastes. We can turn waste into manure and use it in our gardens and societies.

Poop- scoop for dog- loving Parlekars

Poop- scoop

As I stood waiting with my son for his school bus, I noticed several dog walkers leading their dogs into our lane for their ablutions. As I enquired about the where these dogs lived, I was astounded to know they come to Parle from as far as Andheri, to------shit. Apparently the lanes of Parle are quiet, tree- lined and dogs feel totally relaxed here- so they shit quickly. I am really angry with this attitute and have declared my lane off- bounds to such dog- walkers.

One particular fellow, however saw my point and has now been bringing a 'poop- scoop' which he proudly showed me. With this the doggie poop can be moved to a side and covered with mud. So the nuisance is less.

I still feel this is not the solution. Parlekars have large houses- but their dogs shit outside, servants use public utilities, clothes dry in building flowerbeds and footwear and dust-bin are always outside the main door.

At least buy a poop scoop- dog owners!

Sunny Days are here again

The Sun is shining very brightly nowdays- perfect time to bring out my solar cooker. I have this ‘Tulsi’ solar cooker. I have to lug it to the terrace and set it for cooking.

my solar cooker

ready to go into the solar cooker

The first thing I did was to cook a kg of raw mangoes to make kairi panha. I find the solar cooker eminently suited for this preparation.

The slow cooking brings out delicious flavor. And it is easier to fit in my schedule, I can pick it up when I return from work. By that time, its cooked, cooled and ready for the next stage. And after straining and mixing with jaggery it will go back in cooker tomorrow for simmering. Day after tomorrow kairi panha concentrate will be ready!

Sun- made Panha is delicious.