Mumbai Razes Apartment Building, I Raise Questions

illegal constructionA story in The Times of India unwittingly illustrates the problems of construction in Mumbai. It is headlined, 11-storey illegal building near tracks finally razed. Many newspapers carried the story and all of the ones that I read took a righteous tone. ‘Finally this illegal monstrosity has been demolished’, they said. The authors appeared to regret only that the city had taken so long to act.

The building was not illegally constructed on public property or park land nor on a historical landmark. There were no safety claims, as far as I could find, although people worried about the safety of the demolition job given the nearness to the railroad. The photo at right shows a before and after picture. The after does not look better to me than the before.

Not everyone was pleased. The locals, presumably mostly residents (or perhaps hired thugs), tried to stop the demolition:

The BMC began demolition of the structure in June 2016, but owing to severe resistance from locals and no adequate police protection, the work had to be stopped abruptly.

The demolition resumed in August 2016 with the help of around 80 labourers. Though locals again threatened the labourers, the BMC continued the work amid police protection.

Eventually, however, the building was razed to the ground. But here is where it gets interesting. Amazingly, this is not the first time a building on this site has been demolished. According to another report this is in fact the third demolition. Now either the developer is an idiot or it must be so costly to construct a building legally that it’s worth the very real risk of demolition to construct it illegally.

I understand the frustration that people feel when the law is flouted but the real question stories like this raise is, What kind of law makes it so expensive to construct new apartment buildings in a city that by some measures is the most unaffordable in the entire world?

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