Will Dharavi’s global team create a landmark, humane project?

Dharavi is not only a residential complex. It houses a whole ecosystem of economic activities. Will the new dispensation accommodate them?

Will the international team announced by the Adani group on January 1, 2024, to redevelop Dharavi, Mumbai’s largest slum and possibly the world’s largest urban redevelopment project, be able to create a historic landmark? After all, Singapore executed a similar urban transformation in 1966 when it invoked the Land Acquisition Act of 1966. And the Housing Development Board (HDB) of Singapore is part of the consortium.

The Dharavi redevelopment project, first proposed decades ago, was won in a public bid by the Adani group in 2022. It will be executed by a global team, led by Indian architect Hafeez Contractor, who worked with the Slum Redevelopment Authority in the 1990s to come up with the SRA redevelopment plan. It includes global names such as the US design firm Sasaki, and consultancy firm Buro Happold from the UK. Singapore’s HDB brings its expertise on how to create mass housing for the displaced.

This global team has a Floor Space Index of 4, with height restrictions because of its proximity to the airport. The unused FSI can be converted into transferable development rights (TDR) and sold elsewhere. This becomes a currency for the development consortium to unlock the value of the land.

However, the $619 million plan to redevelop over 625 acres or 253 hectares has over a million people to be rehoused. Dharavi is not only a residential complex. It houses a whole ecosystem of economic activities. Will the new dispensation accommodate them? Sasaki specialises in a multi-disciplinary approach to design with an emphasis on the integration of land, buildings, people and their contexts. Will it be able to bring that into the social housing perspective here?

Buro Happold is known for its environmentally conscious and sustainable architecture. With global warming and focus on the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs), integration of these principles in the redeveloped complex can serve as a model for others. With the now polluted Mithi river on one edge, and the various urban renewal missions of water, sanitation and river cleaning in focus, the project should be able to integrate these principles into its design.

In the Delhi Land pooling zone, villages have been asking for buffer land to shield them from rampant urbanisation. Singapore did this when it redeveloped the core area, with a ring of green to check concretisation. Can Dharavi do something similar?

E Jayashree Kurup is a writer-researcher in real estate and Director, Real Estate & Cities, Wordmeister Editorial Services. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.