Now, BMC wants you to park vehicles underground

The picture has been used for representational purpose

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to burrow underground to increase parking space in the city. It has come up with a policy to develop one or two-storey parking lots underground, after receiving flak over an earlier proposal that supported the commercial exploitation of the area below open spaces. The new policy will see the space used only for parking. It will also give developers transfer development rights (TDR) based on a formula fixed by BMC. This parking will mainly be under reserved open spaces and in very rare cases, below-developed gardens said civic officials.

Civic officials said that this is being done to facilitate developers who can give amenities space and earn TDR as it will help them get more development rights to complete or add more space to their existing construction plan. For example, if a developer is supposed to handover a Recreation Ground (RG) space to BMC and he develops a parking lot under it, he will get the additional space as FSI depending upon the formula.

The parking lots which will be maintained by BMC's traffic department. Officials said the policy would include proposed RGs and not developed gardens, so there is no disturbance to the environment. The BMC will extend the policy to private players as well. The policy proposal was first mooted in March but due to the code of conduct for the Lok Sabha elections, it was not taken up for discussion.

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On Tuesday, it was again tabled in front of the improvement committee members and approved. The BMC's Development Control and Promotional Regulations 2034 allowed parking under open spaces and the civic body have drafted the policy on the same lines.

The BMC's previous proposal received immense flak. In it, if a developer was constructing a one or two-level underground parking below reserved open spaces like a playground, recreation ground or a garden, then he would get 30 per cent rights to the developed space for himself. He could use it for commercial purpose.

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'Win-win situation'

Talking about the new policy, a BMC official said the city will get more space for parking, due to it. "The developer will get the benefit of TDR which he can use elsewhere and so we hope it will be a win-win situation for all. There are about five open spaces in the city which will be excluded from this list of underground parking space as mentioned in the DP 2034," he said. Sadanand Parab, Shiv Sena Corporator and Improvement Committee chairman said, "The policy will be tabled before the general body of the corporators. It will then be forwarded to the state government for their approval only after which it will be implemented."

Oppn member upset

However, the policy did not go down well with the opposition's Ashraf Azmi, Congress corporator and committee member. He said, "The BMC did not mention in the policy about the construction being time-bound. Even now various parking lots are with developers and they are yet to be handed over to the BMC in lieu of the redevelopment FSI. After involving private players, it will be difficult to keep a check on whether we get the lots in time."

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