Congestion pricing, good public transit can be long-term solutions for affordable housing: Anubhav Gupta

If you live in a tier 1 metro, there’s a good chance you’re renting. And there’s also a good chance you aren’t pleased with the value for money. And buying a home? Ha! Long story short: Housing is expensive for the average Indian. Anubhav Gupta, Chief Design Officer, Godrej Properties agrees and Head of Sustainability says, “The affordability of housing is a perennial problem in most tier 1 metros across the world. India is no different. Land costs are exorbitant, development charges on the rise and the industry remains susceptible to cyclical market downturns.”

Costs more to build small apartments
Gupta says that this in turn causes the market to react in two major ways. One, this gives rise to suburban sprawl - to get some easement in land prices further away from city centres. Two, high density smaller apartments vertically within the city are being built. Gupta says, “Interestingly both responses can only sustain within reasonable limits. Sprawl without the decentralisation of downtown and lack of public transit may not work in the long run. High density is an increasing burden on infrastructure already bursting at it seams and furthermore, it actually costs more money to build smaller apartments and cater to their parking needs which again circles back to the public transit and infrastructure dependence.”


Do our bit for tomorrow
Is there a solution? “Taller and higher density mixed use and mixed income development planned around transit is a logical solution as seen in most successful western cities. This may provide a good cross subsidy towards creating better affordability. Disincentivising the use of private vehicles in the city centre, congestion pricing and the availability of good quality public transit would help ease some pressure. A nodal approach to decentralising ‘downtown’ or job creation equitably across the city into satellite ecosystems would be useful.”

We need to be disruptive in our thinking says Gupta. He adds, “None of these are short term fixes. However, we do need to get started so our future generations can sustain comfort and livability, and, for our cities to become globally competitive engines of economy for our country.”