Israel’s co-ops optimise use of land, say Gujarat developers

The Confederation of Real Estate Developers Associations of India (Credai), Gujarat organised a seven-day technical tour for its members in mid-January. The 60-member delegation, that included developers from Ahmedabad, Mehsana, Rajkot, Surat, Palanpur, Navsari, Unjha, Bharuch and other centres, visited Israel, Jordan and Oman.

The developers visited various construction sites in the three countries for exchange of technologies and also gained knowledge of cooperative model for housing and farming followed in Israel.

The developers were quite impressed by the cooperative models. In India, Magarpatta City has been developed on the model of Israel's cooperative housing society. "The centres facing land crunch can use this model where many land owners are included as stakeholders and big townships are set up. This could benefit developers and the land owners," said Suresh Patel, vice-president of Credai, Gujarat.

The realty players from Gujarat found the cooperative model of farming also quite interesting, where farmers create a pool of land and other resources and work together. They get wages and profit goes to the cooperative society's account which is used for development of new farm land and bringing in innovation in farming.

"Israel is known for maximum utilisation of water and it is demonstrated in cooperative farming using drip irrigation," said Yogesh Bhavsar, secretary of Credai, Gujarat.

Similarly, Tel Aviv in Israel uses common parking space for row-house apartments. "It allows maximum utilisation of the parking area," said Bhavsar.

The builders also found it impressive that greenery was created despite shortage of water using recycled water. Apart from that in Muscat, reclaimed sea-land has been used for setting up a township. The developers wished that such technology had been used for development on Sabarmati Riverfront. 

The developers also found that the real estate sector of Muscat in Oman was quite consistent compared to Dubai. "Unlike Dubai, Muscat has been stable without any major ups and downs. It has given around 25% return on investment in property in four years," said Dinesh Patel, president of Credai, Gujarat. The developers also found it interesting to have a government policy to give permanent resident (PR) status to investors buying property in Wave Muscat, township located in coastal area.