Mumbai developers offer unsold homes for quarantine – Livemint

“Many developers have come forward and offered inventory to the government for isolating people, if required. We have offered two presently vacant properties in Thane to the municipal corporation,” said Hiranandani Group co-founder and managing director Niranjan Hiranandani, who is also the president of real estate industry body National Real Estate Development Council (Naredco).

“Other developers have also offered some of their inventory to municipalities, but none of these properties have been utilized yet,” he said.

A spokesperson for Godrej Properties said that there have been no requests yet from the Mumbai local body. “However, we are happy to support the government in every way possible to help combat this crisis,” the spokesperson said.

Mumbai Mirror reported on 2 April that Raja Builders, a mid-sized developer in Mumbai, has offered a commercial property in Santa Cruz, one of Mumbai’s western suburbs, as temporary housing for migrant workers. This follows Mahindra & Mahindra chairman Anand Mahindra’s offer of the group’s resorts chain Mahindra Holidays for use as temporary care facilities.

“At a recent conversation with members of Credai (the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India), many developers said they are ready to open their units to local governments where necessary. These can be completed units or under-construction sites,” said Credai president Jaxay Shah. “Where the units are incomplete, we are trying to get some basic infrastructure installed, such as fans and lights, taps and mattresses,” Shah said.

“Some real estate developers have offered vacant properties, mostly slum rehabilitation projects, to develop isolation facilities for migrant workers and the poor. The plan to use these facilities for isolation is in the works. This forms part of the larger plan to scale up isolation and quarantine centres if the number of cases go up,” said Mumbai municipal commissioner Praveen Pardeshi. “These facilities, however, will not be used immediately by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and are part of our back-up plan for the city.”

The offer by the city’s builders is well-intentioned, but there might be practical hurdles to converting incomplete or unsold residential units into quarantine facilities.

“Theoretically, this could be possible, but there could be several challenges, particularly when it comes to ‘camping arrangements’. First, most of the under-construction inventories cannot be legally occupied without necessary services such as power and water and, most importantly, occupancy or completion certificate. There can be safety and habitability issues as well,” said Anurag Mathur, chief executive officer, Savills India, a real estate consultancy firm.

“Hence, developers may also not be willing to take up such a step as the most crucial issue at hand for them is to be able to liquidate the stock. Developers may also have to consider the ‘image issue’ of those projects after they have been used as isolation camps for a pandemic as it could prove to be a deterrent for homebuyers,” he said.

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