Carlin Carr, Mumbai Community Manager
Mumbai is a city filled with complexity — economically, socially, religiously, and politically. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Dharavi, the city’s largest and one of the world’s most famous informal settlements. The one-kilometer-squared area houses 600,000 residents who come from all over the country, speaking dozens of different languages and practicing a variety of traditional customs from their home regions. While the diversity of the area is evident, most of the half-million residents have been united on one particular issue: the tenuous future of their community.
Dharavi, once on the outskirts of Mumbai’s central area (which is situated at the southern tip of the peninsula) was originally occupied by fishing tribes pushed out of an industrializing, 19th-century urban center. As migration has increased in Mumbai, many of these new urban dwellers have settled in Dharavi as well. However, what was once the northern hinterlands of the city is now, increasingly, the central hub of the ever-expanding Mumbai, and Dharavi today occupies one of the most central and strategic positions. The city’s two major train lines intersect at Sion, in the heart of Dharavi, and the city’s biggest corporate park, Bandra Kurla Complex, which houses everything from embassies to major international banks, is just across the Mithi River. The slum area’s real estate value has reached a premium. If Dharavi were to be bulldozed tomorrow, it is estimated the government would be able to sell the land for $25 billion.
Redeveloping Dharavi
And so the complications of a city filled with complications manifest themselves in the redevelopment of this small but densely populated plot of land. Dharavi, despite its long history and upgrades by its residents, has been officially labeled a “slum.” In 2004, the government instituted the Dharavi Redevelopment Plan (DRP), a complex multi-stakeholder public-private partnership (PPP) initiative — including international developers, bureaucrats, state agencies, civil society, and social movements — that seeks to give new apartments to the area’s dwellers. The square footage of these new homes, however, has been a subject of controversy: the original government plan was a meager 180 square feet, but in the wake of community resistance the square footage has since been raised to 225 square feet, then to 300, and recent demands are for the flats to reach an area of 400 square feet.
The battle over square footage runs deeper than a simple fight for bigger spaces. Residents, and groups supporting the residents, feel that the government’s approach to slum redevelopment — particularly for the valuable plot of land on which Dharavi stands — favors economic incentives for builders’ gains over fulfilling the community’s needs. Under the plan, the government has raised the Floor Space Index (or FSI), which specifies the permitted buildable area in relation to a plot size. For example, on 100 square feet of land, an FSI of 1 would mean that 100 square feet can be built up, either in one floor of 100 square feet or two floors of 50 square feet each; accordingly, an FSI of 2 would indicate that 200 square feet could be built on this 100-square-foot plot. In Dharavi, the government has raised the FSI to 4 — higher than in the rest of Mumbai — to incentivize developers with the potential to build luxury housing to subsidize the required free slum housing. As Rakhi Mehra of microHome Solutions explains, “Even an extra FSI of 1 is substantial in high-value areas like Dharavi, where another 100 square feet is like gold. In India, giving higher FSI to developers without mandating some minimum density will not really impact the affordable housing supply.”
Furthermore, the DRP has “artificially” sectioned off Dharavi into five areas that were each bid upon by different private developers (see further details of the DRP here on urb.im). Complicating matters, in pursuit of making the area into an “economic hub,” critics say the government and its partners have neglected the existing thriving economy in Dharavi, which The Economist valued at US$500 million in 2005.
Martina Spies, a Vienna-based architect who is researching Dharavi, wrote an article earlier this year on urb.im arguing that the government’s designation is a misnomer. The area is not a “slum” but a “settlement,” she explains. UN-HABITAT defines a slum as a “run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security.” This, she says, does not describe the area. Spies says the residents have gone to great lengths to upgrade their situations, and that there is a thriving economic and social fabric there. “One of the most fascinating facts and qualities in Dharavi are the improvements on a very micro-level — all created by the people themselves, transforming Dharavi from a so-called slum into an established settlement. Their incredible strength and discipline has guided Dharavi’s tenants in upgrading their homes by themselves with the help of small bank loans or private savings,” writes Spies.
No one-size-fits-all solutions
One of the major issues with the DRP is that it has created one monolithic plan and goal for an area that is highly diverse, not only in terms of its distinctions mentioned above, but also the various housing and tenure situations. Rahul Srivastava and Matias Echanove, founders of URBZ — an organization in Dharavi dedicated to creating user-generated cities — describe the land titles and occupancy rights in the city as some of the most complicated in the world. In a position paper for the “21st Century Indian City” conference at the University of California at Berkeley held earlier this year, they write, “An array of legislations, policy ordinance, acts and notifications, customary laws, special programs and schemes collide with local practices, populist politics and public opinion to create a mangrove-like pattern of ownerships in the city. At once deeply rooted and floating on murky grounds, occupancy rights seem to be, at the end of the day, determined by politics rather than the rule of law.”
Despite the association of slums as being “illegal” — encroaching on city-owned or privately-owned land — many residents of Dharavi have legal tenure or are legal renters. And while their status brings with them certain rights, the DRP has stripped Dharavi’s dwellers of the essential ability of improving their situation. Srivastava and Echanove provide the example of the Vishal Cooperative Housing Society (CHS) in Dharavi, a chawl that was built by the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) before independence in 1947. In other words, since it was built by the city corporation itself, the chawl’s residents are “legitimate citizens” who pay rent to the city, not “illegal” slum dwellers.
The DRP, however, has complicated the situation of the Vishal CHS residents. In fact, they have taken their case and peculiar situation to the city’s Human Rights Court, arguing — despite the city’s denial — that they have a human right to self-develop as legal tenants. And, in fact, ordinarily this right would be granted to them. However, because the chawl is in Dharavi, where the DRP trumps all, they are denied these basic rights. As Srivastava and Echanove explain, the DRP is “de facto depriving all residents of Dharavi of the rights they would have enjoyed if they were living in any other part of the city.” While the residents of CHS have the means and ability to independently improve their housing situation, they will have no choice but to relocate themselves into government-developed buildings — if, and when, the DRP ever comes to fruition.
Given these complicated and murky circumstances surrounding the DRP, many NGOs and community-led initiatives have stepped in to assist Dharavi’s residents. Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC) and Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA) have worked closely with Dharavi’s residents, listening to their concerns and ideas. Many of their concerns center around the fear of losing space for economic activities, since many residents work out of their small homes or use the outdoor and rooftop spaces for their labor. They are also concerned about the destruction of the social fabric that comes with moving from one-or-two-story residences into large, concrete apartment blocks.
In 2010, SPARC and KRVIA released a publication, “ReDharavi,” that called for more resident participation and community control in the DRP process. Further, they suggested that the mega-master plan be broken down into smaller approaches that recognized the different housing situations in the area — nagars, chawls and co-ops — as well as tenure diversity.
The DRP spreads north
The DRP has been in the works for almost a decade, and, in actuality, very little has been accomplished. Yet, despite the controversy surrounding the plan, the model seems to be taking hold in other areas.
The city of Ahmedabad has a population of nearly six million and is the seventh largest city in India. The city is experiencing many of the same issues as other major urban areas, including its larger neighbor, Mumbai. In spite of the city’s challenges, Ahmedabad is known for its entrepreneurial spirit and inventive nature. After all, it was from Sabarati Ashram in Ahmedabad that Mohandas Gandhi led the people of India on a non-violent freedom struggle to victoriously overcome British rule. Three decades later in 1972, the pioneering Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) formed in the city, and today is one of the leading organizations for underserved women in India, and perhaps the world.
In keeping with the forward-looking innovation that runs through the city’s blood, a new project was launched in July 2011 to make Ahmedabad a “slum-free city.” What is surprising, though, is that in a city of such out-of-the-box thinking and entrepreneurship, the Gujarat state government has decided to adopt Mumbai’s DRP model as it embarks on an ambitious plan to upgrade the living quarters of 440,000 slum dwellers in the city. Initially, the PPP project, called “The Regulation for the Rehabilitation and Redevelopment of the Slums 2010,” will focus on 1,200 families who reside in the “crime-prone” slum of Amraiwadi. As in Mumbai, pro-builder policies will provide plenty of opportunity for developers to capitalize off the slum residents’ situation.
The spread of Mumbai’s redevelopment approach to its neighboring state begs the question: Is this the future of development in India? Are there alternatives? B.R. Balachandran, an Ahmedabad-based urban planner and Executive Director of DBS Affordable Home Strategy Ltd, says that new and innovative low-cost housing models are a viable alternative to the governments’ plans in both Mumbai and Ahmedabad. First and foremost, though, these projects need to consider the needs of the residents.
DBS Affordable Housing Initiative
“Housing is a game changer,” says Balachandran, who champions a “holistic” approach to integrating DBS clients into the formal housing system. DBS looks beyond a concrete building or residence into products and services that facilitate its customer base’s transition to formal ownership of their property. The company offers social services that support housing, including facilitating access to home loans, financial literacy, livelihood support, education and health services. Most important, however, is the “active handholding” as families who have mostly lived in slums and informal settings move into housing ownership. This is critical component in making housing a “transformational intervention,” says Balachandran.
This transformational intervention is what the Dharavi Redevelopment Model is lacking and why its potential is questionable. The top-down approach and leap from slum to high-rise misses the need for incremental steps towards integrating the urban poor into the formal housing market. The house is an investment in their future, and, says Balachandran, “there need to be incremental investments in this that the community needs to be a part of.” In other words, simply “replacing a bad house with a better house” lacks the holistic approach and involvement that DBS believes is essential to moving people up the value chain and into the formal housing market. For this to happen, government investment in housing must simultaneously involve investment in moving the poor up the socio-economic ladder by including health, education and “equipping them to deal with life.”
DBS’ affordable housing model acknowledges an important point in housing upgrading for the poor: the process that is needed to successfully improve their circumstances. In a redevelopment project as complicated as that in Dharavi, it is essential to make this community-centered process a part of every step in the project. Without involving the voices of the people, the DRP — or any of India’s urban renewal projects — runs the risk of missing the mark completely, undoing the livelihoods, social structures and intricately interwoven environments in Dharavi that have been so carefully developed over so many years.