The Brave Pedestrian

Appoint Regulators for Redevelopment Industry Download PIL in Word format:  http://tinyurl.com/PIL-against-Redevelopers Also Read: Building Redevelopment: Gaps in Legal Framework & Constitutional Validity SYNOPSIS For the common man, a house is not just the place where he lives. People’s houses are their entire life savings, and the foundation of domestic harmony. It is their security, and the economic foundation on which they base their entire life. The livelihood of many families, the quality of the children’s education and the peaceful lives of retired people, are entirely dependent on their houses. So houses are a matter of life-and-liberty. In the name of de-licensing and liberalization, the government over past decades has withdrawn from its role of providing affordable housing, and has given free play to private developers whose projects are driven purely by profit motive. Also, it has abdicated from its supervisory and regulatory role, and allowed private bu...

4th October 2013, Mumbai: Since redevelopment started in 1991 about two decades ago, and builders could augment the FSI (Floor Space Index) of the land by purchasing TDR (Transfer of Development Rights), cooperative housing societies started neglecting their structures. Seduced by builders who promise larger houses and new buildings, building societies have been keen to steamroll opposition to their redevelopment proposals by individual members by deliberately allowing their building to deteriorate, so that structural auditors can declare them as “dilapidated”. Earlier, it was a nightmare for a society to be told that its building was structurally unsound, and managing committee members and general body members alike were anxious to avoid it by regular re-plastering, painting and repairing. But in the last two decades, a report from structural engineers saying that the building is “dilapidated” or is in need of “major rapairs” has been the dream of every managing committee, because i...