Builders lobby for CRZ land

MUMBAI: The Prime Minister might want the city to be another Shanghai but as far as the urban coastline is concerned, environmentalists would rather that Mumbai is not shanghaied.
Last week, egged on by builders, city politicians asked the Prime Minister’s Office to aid Mumbai’s development by lifting restrictions on coastal development.
They asked for a relaxation in the coastal regulation zone (CRZ) rules, which protects the coastal environment by limiting construction 500 metres from the high tide line, especially in sensitive areas like mangroves.
This is the fourth time in as many years that the Maharashtra government has sought to relax these regulations,making the state one of the most vigorous challengers of the CRZ rules.
This time, however, easing the rules is important for another reason: Politicians also want the Centre to hand over 2,500 acres of salt-pan land, but since such land is governed by the CRZ rules, merely transferring ownership does not mean they can open it up for development.
Mumbai’s salt-pan lands largely lie along the creeks and coast of the eastern suburbs. They fall under CRZ-1, the most protected category of coastal land.
Not surprisingly, it is the city builders who are most keen on scrapping the CRZ rules. Builders, and indeed many business associations, feel that such restrictions are inappropriate in an island city like Mumbai with its shortage of housing—over 50 per cent of residents live in slums—and infrastructure.
“Everything, from slum redevelopment schemes to tourism and bridges, is getting held up because of these rules,’’ complains Ajit Mathur, chairperson of the Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry’s sub-committee on environment, who was part of the Delhi delegation.
Builders say the CRZ restrictions make it unviable for them to invest in reconstruction of many of the city’s 16,000 dilapidated buildings and slum redevelopment. In Delhi, they also lobbied to have the stipulation that projects over Rs 5 crore be cleared by the Centre removed.
“Even small projects take years to get started because of this,’’ says Mr Mathur, who wants to create a ring road around the city.However, environmentalists counter that scrapping the CRZ will benefit the builders more than the homeless.