Housing shortage can’t be addressed alone by higher floor space index
Real estate consultant KJ Singh said, “The mess that the real estate sector is in today will become worse if FSI is increased as the builder lobby has been asking for a higher FSI.”
On a certain plot FSI is the total covered area on all floors of all buildings divided by the area of the plot.
Before increasing the FSI, better infrastructure such as means of transport, parking and basic facilities such as drinking water need to be set in place. “Look at the state of most townships, there is shortage of parking; many don’t have drinking water facility. Higher FSI can be a solution only after we build matching infrastructure. I feel status quo should be maintained for FSI,” he said.
A report pitching for increasing the permissible FSI in cities is released by PHD Chamber and Cushman and Wakefield. The report titled ‘Challenges and opportunities for the housing sector in urban India’ said Higher FSI will bring in more supply into the market, creating more homes.
The research recommends that we need to boost affordable housing, build integrated townships, provide impetus to redevelop slums, and increase FSI limits to build vertical cities, to reduce the urban housing crunch.
“Higher FSI, without the required infrastructural upgrade, will result in extra load on the already congested and chaotic roads,” the report said.
According to the report, based on the present current growth of population the demand for urban housing will scale up by nearly 12 million units by 2017. Around 23 per cent of this demand will be generated in the top eight cities of India. It estimates that by 2017 the total housing demand in the country to be as high as 88.78 million units.
“By just increasing FSI the problem cannot be solved; the density should also be increased,” Professor of Housing, School of Planning and Infrastructure, PSN Rao said,
Number of building units per hectare is the density.
“Also, a restriction on the size of flats needs to be put, so that higher FSI leads to more number of housing units,” Rao added.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation stated, in 2012, that in urban India there is a shortage of 18.78 million housing units, of which nearly 95 per cent affects the economically weaker sections and low income group of the urban population. Rao said, “Look at Noida. Because of lack of infrastructure many flats are lying unsold. Transport facilities needs to be build to address this transit oriented development problem.”
Source: The Hindu Business Line
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