Higher floor space index alone can’t address housing shortage, say experts

New Delhi, April 20:   

 

A higher Floor Space Index (FSI) is not the magic wand to address the housing shortage in the country, real estate experts believe. 

Real estate consultant KJ Singh said, “The builder lobby has been asking for a higher FSI, but the mess that the real estate sector is in today will become worse if FSI is increased.”

FSI is the total covered area on all floors of all buildings on a certain plot divided by the area of the plot. 

Better infrastructure such as means of transport, parking and basic facilities such as drinking water need to be set in place before increasing the FSI. “Look at the state of most townships, there is shortage of parking, many don’t have drinking water facility. We need to first build matching infrastructure, and then higher FSI can be a solution. I feel status quo should be maintained for FSI,” he said. 

A report released by PHD Chamber and Cushman and Wakefield pitches for increasing the permissible FSI in cities. Higher FSI will bring in more supply into the market, creating more homes, the report titled ‘Challenges and opportunities for the housing sector in urban India’ said.

 

Remedy

The research suggests that to reduce the urban housing crunch, we need to boost affordable housing, build integrated townships, provide impetus to redevelop slums, and increase FSI limits to build vertical cities. 

“Without the required infrastructural upgrade, higher FSI will result in extra load on the already congested and chaotic roads,” the report said. 

According to the report, the demand for urban housing will scale up by nearly 12 million units by 2017 based on just the current growth of population. Around 23 per cent of this demand will be generated in the top eight cities of India. It estimates the total housing demand in the country by 2017 to be as high as 88.78 million units. 

PSN Rao, Professor of Housing, School of Planning and Infrastructure, said, “The problem cannot be solved by just increasing FSI; the density should also be increased.”

Density is the number of building units per hectare. 

“Also, a cap on the size of flats needs to be put, so that higher FSI leads to more number of housing units,” Rao added. 

In 2012, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation stated that there is an undersupply of 18.78 million housing units in urban India, of which nearly 95 per cent affects the economically weaker sections and low income group of the urban population. Rao said, “Look at Noida. Many flats are lying unsold because of lack of infrastructure. We need to build transport facilities so that transit oriented development can address this problem.”