FSI violation by Singhania’s high-rise at Breach Candy

JK House

Located right opposite to breach Candy hospital, Singhania’s 37-storeyed JK House tower is seems to be in trouble. Built against a floor space index of 2,570 square meters, JK House sprawls over 27,400 square meters. That means the total construction area is more than ten times the FSI calculation and as per shops and homes that can cause serious concerns from urban planning point of view. For all of you who don’t know, FSI is the ratio which decides the permissible area to be built on a plot.

In 2008 excessive concessions were sanctioned by then municipal commissioner Jairaj Phatak to the developer which is the extra covered spaces, which are non-permissible and totally in disregard of the spirit of development control rules. Although in 2012 BMC had stopped the work on construction site when concessions were found to be misused and excessive.

The JK House covers basement along with stilts, shops on the first and second floors, parking levels and two refuge floors between the third and 14th floors and also a museum between the 15th and 18th floors. While the floors from 20 to 36 are provided for residences, amenities, fire refuge, and AC plant room, 19th floor is a service area. The tower stands at 142.56 m in height.

 Shops and homes mention that only up to 4% of the built up area is allowed to be free of FSI and anything falling beyond this limit shall be considered in FSI as per the rules of National Building Code, still the JK House was allowing an area of 2,563 square meters just for fire refuge floors and refuge areas.

On top of that higher floors apartments of JK House were spread over 70 square meters in area and there were no proofs of approval from the state government supporting that. Hence, in order to get clearance from state government Raymond Ltd is required to submit modified plans in accordance with the applicable regulations.