MUMBAI: The reimagining of Mumbai has come at a cost of its civic infra – since 2023, 12 plots originally marked for parks, playgrounds and recreation grounds have been diverted for utilities and alternate developments, putting pressure on the city’s already scarce stock of public open spaces, while three others are on the precipice of similar changes, having been placed before the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) Improvements Committee’s since June.
HT was the first to report on this on May 20 even before the proposal was tabled in the committee in June.
Against this backdrop, the latest stack of proposals before the Improvements Committee has renewed scrutiny over the protection of Mumbai’s open spaces – the most prominent one being the Neville D’Souza Football Ground at Bandra Reclamation, which is scheduled to facilitate an exhibition and convention centre.
The Malabar Hill gardens proposals have been referred back but that doesn’t mean they won’t be cleared. It proposes a publicly accessible and continuously updated open-space database, stronger coordination between government, experts, communities and civil society, and improved mechanisms for policy and funding. “We were clear about our stance in our vision document. The open space policy has not been finalised and has been pending for a long time. He also pointed to the open space policy that could address the reconstruction of religious structures without deleting garden reservations. “We are not going against people’s faith, but there are no reassurances that the land will not be misused for other gains. The entire land cannot belong to a temple trust. They are opposing MHADA plots in Vile Parle being given to a trust; why can’t they oppose this open space? “The deletion of open space reservations is disgraceful. An analysis by the Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI) and NAGAR, in their report ‘Public Open Space, Mapping Existing and Reserved Open Spaces’, highlights this disparity. Higher figures in some wards are influenced by large government and institutional campuses, naval and dock areas, heritage spaces and relatively lower population density. UDRI-NAGAR’s strategy suggests moving beyond merely mapping open spaces toward a city-wide framework for their protection, investment and management.
“The temple had existed for around 150 years and stood on privately owned trust land, but its reservation as an open space prevented reconstruction. Questioning the rationale of changes in the DP, Congress leader in the BMC Ashraf Azmi said: “It defeats the purpose of formulating the development plan in 2018 – it means they don’t value the opinions of citizens. The island city has an average existing public open-space provision of 2.94 sq m per capita. A-ward in Colaba has around 9.4 sq m, while B-ward in Dongri has only 0.5 sq m.
Defending the proposals, Satam said while the BJP is committed to an open-space policy in its vision document, several existing reservations represented anomalies that needed to be resolved. We will ensure that it is finalised in the current year and all anomalies are cleared,” said Satam, putting forth the example of the space in Jogeshwari zoned as a park, where a temple’s reconstruction has been planned. Nayana Kathpalia, founder trustee of NAGAR, said the repeated changes in the DP undermined assurances made by political parties. What is the point of political parties in power offering assurances when their intent is just the opposite,” she said.
