Private builders eye suburbs for parking slots after restrictions in South Mumbai

The new multi-level parking policy has restricted the development of parking slots in South Mumbai. Private builders are now showing interest in constructing parking slots in suburbs. After the new policy was announced, the civic administration has received six proposals, out of which only one is from South Mumbai.

The state government has formulated the parking policy in 2008 and scrapped it in April 2011 as private players took undue advantage of the Development Control Regulation (DCR) 33(24).

As per the DCR norms, builders carrying out construction in at least 1,000 sq metres area in the Island City and over 2,000 sq metres in the suburbs could avail Floor Space Index (FSI) of up to four in return for constructing 50 public parking slots. This led to fears of overcrowding in lucrative areas like Lower Parel and Worli in the South-Central Mumbai mill land belt where the demand for development is huge.

The new policy has restricted mushrooming of parking slots in particular areas of South Mumbai. Now, the developer has to pay 40% premium to avail incentive of extra FSI. The 40% incentive includes the value of the plots and construction cost of the project. The developer has to pay 50% of the premium at the time of issuing intention of disapproval (IOD) and 50% before issuing commencement certificate (CC).

According to the policy, maximum cap of the built up area per parking space will be 50 sq meters for light motor vehicles and 85 sq meters for heavy motor vehicles or buses.

The incentive FSI shall be calculated as per the standard built up area or actual whichever is less per parking space.

The new policy will create parking space for about 1,500 cars in the suburbs. While the parking slot in Borivili will have a capacity of 194 cars, Oshiwara will have 515 cars and Bhandup 300 cars.

The parking slot in Goregaon will have a capacity of 70 cars.