MHADA plans to demand housing stock from private builders instead of premiums, and offer tenants corpus fund for redevelopment projects to make way for more affordable homes
Picture this — MHADA has 56 societies comprising 3,000 buildings in the city. With no more land available to build more affordable homes, redevelopment is the only option.
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MHADA plans to demand housing stock instead of the premium amount that it has been collecting from private builders in exchange for a No Objection Certificate (NOC) to redevelop MHADA buildings. Secondly, it also plans to offer each tenant of MHADA buildings a corpus fund, which private builders have been offering.
With this, MHADA will get 1 lakh more housing stock if all goes as planned. Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan is expected to give his nod in the winter session.
Drawback
Till now, the biggest drawback was the tenants’ preference for a private builder over MHADA for redevelopment, as they distributed the corpus fund. To counter this, MHADA plans to offer tenants similar corpus funds. It was in 2010 that MHADA decided that it would take housing stock instead of premium money from private builders, who cited this as a reason for not redeveloping MHADA properties.
Meanwhile, tenants had shied away from allowing MHADA to redevelop their building on two grounds — the construction quality and the corpus fund that they would get if private builders were roped in for the project.
Road ahead
Sources in MHADA claim that the final approval to implement its plans is underway and MHADA will give nearly Rs 5 lakh per tenant for redevelopment.
A senior MHADA official said on condition of anonymity, “When we decided to redevelop a Vikhroli plot early last month, we decided to give a corpus fund to each resident. When we planned to do it for one project, then why not do it for all the MHADA societies?”
Another senior MHADA official said, on condition of anonymity, “Already there is no land available with MHADA to build new buildings. This is the best way to generate housing stock.”
However, private builders aren’t in favour of giving homes, as they will lose out on profits. On October 8, the Shiv Sena carried out a morcha against MHADA for not granting an NOC to societies when they refused to shell out housing stock instead of the premium.
Vaishali Sandansingh, CPRO, MHADA, said, “Giving corpus to tenants during redevelopment is being considered. It’s still in the planning stage and things are to be finalised yet.”u00a0
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