Identify unused land in cities: Centre

Identify unused land in cities: Centre
The Economic Times, February 22, 2009, Page 6

Neha Dewan NEW DELHI

IN Abid to push the agenda of affordable housing, state governments have now begun the process of identifying vacant land in key cities which would be handed over to local development authorities for building houses. This follows a directive in this regard from the Centre to states, with the idea of making governments more active in house building in the future.

At a time when private developers are facing acute cash crunch, government's plan to develop such land could actually help in bringing the overall costs down. It will also help generate surplus resources to boost the demand for housing.

"The states are already in the process of identifying such unused land, and we will soon know the total number of hectares. This exercise will also find out what priority should be given to such land. The objective is to see how best can housing be encouraged so that demand is bolstered again," Union urban development secretary M Ramachandran said.

While talking to SundayET, Mr Ramachandran further said that housing boards and development authorities might soon come back to play a major role. "We will soon be going back to an era where housing boards will occupy a central role again. Nearly 98% of the population cannot afford to buy houses from private builders. At what cost can the private sector accommodate this chunk of the population?

Although affordable housing has been initiated by most private developers, these may not be able to meet the bulk need in the low-cost housing bracket. However, if the state governments implement vacant land in city areas, it would imply more supply in the offing for the real estate sector. "Almost every city has land which is unutilized or is a nonperforming asset. If such a move is implemented, it will mean added supply or other infrastructure coming up within the respective cities which will be very beneficial," says Anshuman Magazine, CMD, CB Richard Ellis South Asia.

However, a large number of clearances would still be needed to acquire the vacant land, depending on the city's rules and regulations, land usage and the owner of the said land. "Every city has its own rules and regulations regarding transfer of land. In some cases there is also multiple ownership of land which takes more time in clearances," adds Mr Magazine.