Why builder-driven ‘slum redevelopment’ won’t change the lives of Mumbai’s poorest residents

Mumbai is being ruled in a way which guarantees that it will be permanently infested with slums – new, vertical, permanent slums in replacement of the old, temporary, mostly horizontal slums. The Slum Redevelopment Authority of Maharashtra is doing this and the issue matters because other states are considering adopting the “SRA model” for coping with slums.

Let us begin by listing the characteristics of a slum:

1. Too-small accommodation, often 10 sqm or less, for a family of four or more

2. Flimsy construction material (not always – Mumbai’s BDD Chawls are a good example of beautiful old solid stone construction, nevertheless declared as slums)

3. Narrow passageways between constructions, poor vehicular access

4. Inadequate water supply, no sewerage, poor garbage collection

5. Inadequate light and ventilation, to the point where it is damaging to health, particularly of children

6. No schools with playgrounds, no place for children to run around and develop physically

7. No clinics or other basic medical support

8. No parks or recreation spaces

With redevelopment, the difference is that whereas in the 1900s the slums were temporary structures, often built without permission on vacant land that happened to be free, the slums since 1996 are being rebuilt by the Slum Redevelopment Authority as legitimate permanent RCC structures that will last a hundred years or more.

The redevelopment takes care of only the first four items listed above, of which the fourth is often neglected. Some completed Slum Redevelopment Authority schemes have clogged, not-working sewerage, and indifferent garbage collection. Items five to eight above are not bothered about at all. Half the conditions that define a slum remain unchanged, and after reconstruction nothing can be done about that for at least another century or so.

So forget about ever being slum-free, Mumbai is headed towards having a large chunk of its population living forever in slum-like conditions. The only real difference will be that families will be living in larger accommodation with significantly higher maintenance costs, not always recoverable from the developer.

Instead of calling it redevelopment, we should call it what it really is – replacement. The Slum Redevelopment Authority should be renamed Slum Replacement Authority. In these days of guarantees, we can express the Slum Redevelopment Authority’s guarantee: new slums for old. With the added assurance that the new slums will endure, condemning several generations of children to diminished lives.

The driving force is the government’s promise to give every slum dweller a free house, together with a lump sum in the community’s bank sufficient to ensure that it will yield returns in future sufficient to cover maintenance costs. So for the occupant the house will be free forever. The icing on the (free) cake is that the occupant can sell his apartment on the market. The price realised will be not only the cost of construction but also the cost of the underlying land. Land costs in Mumbai are often ten times construction costs, so the bonanza for the occupant who got everything free is truly massive.

It is not going to be easy for any government to backtrack now and cancel the promise of free housing for all slum dwellers. Democracy is circumscribed by its voting powers, which can limit what it is possible to do. But let us see if a deeper analysis can uncover a solution.

We begin by recognising that what the Slum Redevelopment Authority is doing is basically a land grab. The principle is that if you have land on which there are slums, you can provide the occupants with high-rise pucca housing on a corner of the plot they occupy while the rest of the plot is freed up for luxury housing. The profit from the luxury housing sales will not only cover the cost of the free housing but will also yield a handsome profit for the developer.

For everything to go smoothly you have to promise the slum residents free re-housing on free land, with an assured minimum size of apartment they will receive, but no assurances about anything else – neither daylight nor ventilation nor play space for children nor recreational areas for the elderly. The consequence is that the low-income buildings are jammed up against each other to maximise the extent of land that is freed up for luxury development. We end up replacing a horizontal slum with a vertical slum in permanent structures.

How did we come to this pass? The story begins with the formation of the first Shiv Sena government in Maharashtra in the mid-1990s. Balasaheb Thackeray was its leader exercising “remote control” over the government without occupying any formal position in the political hierarchy. He liked the idea of a contractor friend who suggested the scheme: provide slum dwellers free pucca accommodation on a corner of the plot they occupy in exchange for releasing the rest of the plot for luxury construction.

It was a win-win-win situation, with the slum dwellers winning free pucca housing, luxury occupiers winning accommodation in desirable, convenient localities, and developers winning profits for implementing the scheme.

Lost sight of were three important constraints: one was that the low-income high-rise housing needed to be designed in a way that conformed with building bye-laws that required a minimum distance between buildings which increased with increasing height.

Another was that such housing, if made permanent, demanded adequate social and recreational amenities within walking distance – schools and pocket parks in particular. The third constraint was that such a scheme could not be made universally applicable. The market for luxury housing was surely not so large that it could provide sufficient funds to construct housing for the half of the city’s population that was currently living in ramshackle slums.

None of these constraints was recognised and the irreversible promise was made of giving every slum dweller a free house.

If a technically illegal resident of the city could get a free house of an assured size, why should legal residents living in small tenanted accommodation not get such housing too? And that also free? So the original policy of free housing for unauthorised slum dwellers on illegally encroached land was extended to all low and even middle-income residents, who could now pull down their properties, even if they were in good condition, and replace them with new, tall construction paid for by sale of new apartments permitted on the same plot.

Once again, lost sight of was the fact that the new construction would necessarily be jammed tight, with much poorer light and ventilation than the old buildings. There was no question of course of adding new amenity spaces – where were the plots for that? – so the new occupants of the for-sale construction would be forced to share existing amenities, thus diminishing the availability of these for everyone, new occupants and old. The permanent slummification of the city for low-income residents is thus accompanied by a further crowding of the better off – in other words a diminished quality of life for everyone.

The policy is welcomed, of course, by developers. They can walk away with profit in their pockets and with no need to concern themselves with what happens in the development after they leave.

So with the promise of free housing the government has painted itself into a corner from which there seems to be no escape. Is there any way out of this mess?

Our one ray of hope is that the free housing project seems to be running out of steam. The early years were hugely successful. The scheme of Imperial Towers in the Tardeo neighbourhood is a good example. Here, there was a large plot with not too many slum dwellers on it, so rehousing them in packed conditions in a corner of the property released a very large area. On this two towers of 60 storeys each were constructed for the luxury market.

The success of the scheme, in particular the high profits generated for the developer, led to an endorsement of the policy, underlining the notion that the same thing could be done for the totality of the slum population. Ignored of course were the provision of corresponding amenities, light and ventilation for the low-income housing, and perhaps most important was the seeding of the idea in all low-income people’s minds of deserving a free house in the city simply because they were poor.

This belief, now entrenched in low-income people’s minds that they are entitled to a free house, sooner or later, will now be impossible to dislodge. It is a dream that can never be fulfilled and never be withdrawn. So the only way forward is to leave the dream in place and start a parallel scheme that actually provides affordable housing, at a modest price, while the occupant waits for the never-never free housing to happen.

If the new housing is to be affordable, the cost of land has to be taken out of the accounting of costs and returns. We have to recognise that the land on which the slum stands was once useless to the point where a slum was allowed to come up on it. Its old value was zero or close to zero. Now the city has developed all around it, and the same land commands a significant price on account of its location. This is the justification for the land grab, to clear and recover at least part of the land to produce a profit.

But recall that the slum came up in the first place because no other land was made available, while the occupants were wanted in the city as part of its formal or informal workforce. So it makes sense to treat that entire slum land parcel as de facto land for low-income housing, to be kept permanently as such – in other words there should be a de jure acceptance of its purpose, that is, to somehow declare it as land dedicated to low-income housing for all time.

Each slum land parcel lacks the basic social amenities of schools with playgrounds, and parks or other essential recreation spaces. While the density of habitation on the parcel is probably among the largest in the world, with buildings of modest height the parcel can be replanned to reaccommodate everyone in modestly sized apartments, while also providing the additional amenities of schools, playgrounds and parks.

The issues that remain are: how is this to be paid for, and how do we ensure that the locality continues to remain both affordable and dedicated to low-income residents well into the distant future?

There are ways to do this, which require elaborate explanation. This calls for a separate article. Meanwhile, the first and absolutely vital step is to accept that existing slum lands are not for government to make a profit. They are to be dedicated exclusively to the low-income housing for which they are currently used. The new housing should be for no more than the count of existing residents, to be replanned with full provision of all missing amenities, as listed in points five to eight above.

It is only with such a mandate in place that we can hope to make Mumbai a city worth living in for all its citizens.

Otherwise, if we are doomed to continue with the Slum Rehabilitation Authority’s current policies, the next big project that aligns with these is Dharavi. Here we are talking about a population of close to half a million people and their successive generations of children. Do we want them in permanent slum-like conditions or can we hope for a rethink consistent with India’s increasing growth and prosperity?

The author is a civil engineer and urban planner, one of the three authors who suggested the idea of Navi Mumbai.