SRA projects to be included CRZ II areas

In a development that is likely to benefit slum rehabilitation projects located in Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) II areas in the city, the Bombay high court, ruled last week that the CRZ 2019 notification does not specifically exclude Slum Rehabilitation Authority’s (SRA) projects from CRZ II and clarified a policy issue that government agencies had been grappling with while entertaining slum schemes in CRZ II areas.

The ruling by a bench comprising Justices GS Patel and Gauri Godse was issued on a petition filed by Akshay Sthapatya Pvt Ltd, a developer planning to redevelop Mariamma Nagar slum pocket to the north and east of Nehru Centre, Worli, which falls in a CRZ II zone. The project, which has been pending for 20 years, is on an area of about 20,500 sq mts with 1,500 slum tenements. The Centre, Maharashtra government, SRA and the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) were respondents in the petition.

The court dealt with the question of whether the CRZ 2019 notification was “silent” on the inclusion of slum schemes in CRZ II. The notification had in fact relaxed the distance norms that demarcates CRZ I, II, III and IV from the high tide line mentioned in the CRZ 2011 notification.

The 2011 notification had allowed slum schemes to be implemented in CRZ II areas by government agencies or through public-private partnerships as joint ventures with private enterprises subject to three conditions. One of the conditions mandated government agencies have a minimum 51 per cent stake in such joint ventures. In October 2013, the SRA had written to the state government about many schemes in CRZ II areas being halted due to this condition, and sought its deletion. The government in turn sent this recommendation to the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests.

In January 2019, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) revised the CRZ norms in the 2019 notification and relaxed the distance requirements for CRZ I, II, III and IV areas. However, the 2019 notification did not include a restriction similar to the 51 per cent ownership in SRA joint ventures. But, Regulation 6 (i) of the CRZ Notification 2019 said that until the Coastal Zone Management Plans (CZMP) were revised, updated and approved by the MOEFCC approval, the zoning relaxations of CRZ Notification 2019 would not apply. Citing Regulation 6 (i), the MCZMA had declined applications for slum schemes on the ground that the CZMP had not been revised, updated or approved by the MOEFCC.

“We fail to see how any of the respondents can ever contend that there is still a question of whether or not to include SRA projects in CRZ II areas. This was never in controversy. The only question was whether special conditions should apply to SRA projects in CRZ II areas. Those conditions have been removed. SRA projects have not been excluded from the CRZ Notification 2019,” the October 20 order stated.

“What the government seems to now say is that the inclusion of SRA projects in CRZ II areas must be specifically done in the CRZ Notification 2019. In other words, as a matter of law, it submits that whatever is not specified is prohibited. To our mind, it is exactly the other way around -- that which is not specifically prohibited is permitted. It is impossible to expect that any statute will completely and accurately envision every possibility and will then make express provision for its inclusion. There is nothing in the CRZ notification 2019 either to suggest that SRA projects must be mentioned in the CRZ notification 2019 expressly or else they stand excluded,” the court observed.

The court put emphasis on the clarification because of repeated attempts by government agencies in misinterpreting the policy norms. Earlier, after MCZMA refused to entertain slum schemes on the basis of Regulation 6 (i), the petitioner had challenged the regulation, keeping in abeyance the relaxations given by the CRZ 2019 notification.

Reacting to the order, Anand Gupta, chairperson of the Housing and RERA Committee of the Builders Association of India (BAI) said, “The HC order has now provided clarity and endorsed SRA projects in CRZ II. They will now be eligible for the full potential FSI as the rest of the projects in CRZ II areas.”

When contacted, a senior SRA officer told HT, “This slum project is a landward project, and it is now clear that landward slum projects can be approved in CRZ II areas. We have now written to the State Environment Ministry asking them whether this is applicable to seaward or sea-facing projects in CRZ II areas.” HT tried to contact Environment Secretary Pravin Darade, but he was not available for comment.