Mumbai: Soon, underground spaces to only house parked cars

In order to ensure that commercial development doesn't happen in spaces underneath gardens, playgrounds and recreation grounds, and they are used solely for parking, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has come up with a new policy. It will be tabled before the civic body's improvement committee on March 28 for approval. However, civic officials feel it might not get approved now in view of the model code of conduct.

The rule that has been in place allows setting up of commercial shops underneath open spaces, as planned in the Patwardhan Park case. Officials said that while the tenders floated for the project do not mention commercial development, the design plan for the garden includes commercial use of the underground space.

Earlier, if developers volunteered to construct underground spaces as well, they would get rights on 30 per cent of the developed space for commercial use. However, sources said that if the new policy comes into effect, the developer would only be given transfer development rights of his share of commercial space, to be utilised elsewhere. Other open spaces in the DCPR 2034 are in Azad Maidan and Oval Maidan among others.

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