Homes much higher than the ground level

Homes much higher than the ground level
Considering the limitations for horizontal development of houses, Bangalore is likely to compromise with vertical growth. K Sukumaran gives a future real estate landscape of the city.
Deccan Herald

TYPICALLY Bangaloreans of yesteryear's lived in spacious bungalows with large open space around. The first signs of threat to their privacy were seen when multi-storeyed residential buildings sprang up in their neighbourhoods, initially, in some rare cases in the late 1970s and in quite a large number, during the mid 1980s.

For example in 1985, when Bhakthavar Constructions put up a high rise residential structure in Sadashivanagar around 1985, a few residents in the locality whose porticos and even bedrooms were exposed to the gaze of the occupants of the neighbouring apartments, reacted sharply, and in fact, approached the Karnataka High Court with a writ petition, praying for the curtailment of the construction of high rise buildings in residential areas like theirs. After a prolonged legal battle, they won the case.

On appeal by the builder to the Supreme Court of India, a direction was given to knock off the “unauthorised” portion of the construction from the fifth floor upwards, though ultimately, the directions remained on paper, for many reasons, such as, non-availability of equipment to carry out the precise demolition work, its effect on the strength of the remaining floors etc. Even today, the apartments above the fifth floor remain legally unoccupied.

History

It was after the 1969 Mumbai agitation by the Shiv Sena activists for ousting the “outsiders”, especially, the people from South India in the city, Bangalore was flooded with an influx of businessmen and builders. Some of these “adventurers” embarked on acquiring plots and sites at cheap rates and took up construction of office and residential houses. One may not believe that, the cost of plots measuring 60'x40' in Indiranagar 2nd Stage in 1970-72 allotted by the Bangalore City Improvement Trust Board (the predecessor to BDA) was only Rs 3,500 or so. The builders from Mumbai then saw the massive opportunities of profitable ventures in housing sector in Bangalore in the days to come. The first high rise commercial complex, viz, the Public Utility Building consisting of 24 floors came up on the MG Road in the early 1970s. The only high rise office structure earlier to this was that of the State Bank of Mysore, Head Office, on the KG Road, which was completed during 1969-70.

High rise apartments

The first residential apartment building which came up in Bangalore was the 11 storey High Point complex on the Palace Road, promoted by the S I (Southern Investments Pvt Ltd) during 1978-79, which was, perhaps, the beginning of a new trend of vertical growth. The proliferation of modern high rise residential structures like the L&T’s South City is of recent origin. In between, many high rise apartments of 10-15 floors were promoted by other developers.

Future growth

Now that the horizontal development has given way to vertical growth, what can be the future? As many societies and small developers initially built only 10-15 apartments with three to four floors, which are now about 20 years old, will it not be a good idea to demolish them, especially those built in the central part of the city, like Shanthinagar, Kengal Hanumanthaiah Road, Vasanthanagar etc and build high rise structures of 15-20 storeys as the next step towards increasing the number of residential flats?

Incidentally, this writer had an occasion to see a novel plan put in place by the owners of small residential flats in Ahmedabad. In one such case, a builder tried to deal with the individual owners of the apartments one by one, obviously to take advantage of offering low prices, to corner the entire old apartment complex, one by one, before taking up the construction of massive high rise structure afresh, for sale at current market rates. The owners in this case became wise and they collectively, bargained for better price and insisted on obtaining new apartments in the new complex to come up. Of course, some of them preferred to move out to the city's outskirts for the sake of lung space, lower prices etc.

Future shock

So, what can be the scenario in Bangalore in the next five to 10 years? The first casuality will be the independent bungalows and the spacious compounds, which will be replaced by high rise apartment complexes. The new generation of Bangaloreans have already opted to stay in studios and single bedroom apartments. Of course, the high and mighty have penthouses and large luxury flats. Post Arkavathy, scene will compel the low and middle income groups to give up their dream of owning independent houses hereafter.

The next scenario will be the demolition of old and comparatively small housing complexes, wherein large high rise apartments will come up. Self contained “down towns” will be the next phase, away from the “business district” to escape from traffic jams and other infrastructural shortcomings in the central parts of Bangalore City.

Another trend will be the re-location syndrome. Outer ring road will be the centre of construction activity for sometime to come. The minority of remaining Bangaloreans may opt to sell their present houses to take advantage of the ruling high rates, and re-locate themselves in the municipalities around Bangalore. Mysore, Tumkur and Kolar may be the satellite towns in demand in the coming decades.

So, when the old natives of Bangalore visit their ancestral town after 10-15 years from now, he will be greeted by North Cities, South Cities, West Down Towns and East Corridors.

And of course, the IT cities and FDI “counties” will also be there to greet them!