Kolkata housing demand at 50 mn sq ft

The Kolkata real estate market is set to expand to 50 million square feet of formatted housing by 2010, according to Rahul Todi, managing director of Bengal Shrachi Housing Development Limited.

According to international architects, Stephen A Coates and Kevin MY Tan, co-owners of aCTa International such estimates are very conservative, in view of the buoyant Kolkata market.

New Town Rajarhat was being built to house five million people and the area should, according to calculations, require around 1.25 billion square feet of formatted housing if developed properly, remarked Coates and Tan.

The duo have already designed and conceptualised over 24 lakh (2.4 million) square feet of real estate development in the city in the past six years.

They were currently busy with Bengal Shrachi's complete home solution retail centre, Block by Block.

The project was worth Rs 75 crore (Rs 750 million) and would cover 180,000 square feet of mall space. The balance 45,000 sq feet would be office space.

Another project by the same group in the pipeline was Greenwood Sonata.

Also worth Rs 70 crore (Rs 700 million), it would have 500 apartments and a space of 50,000 sq metre.  They would also be involved in a service apartment cum offices, Stesalit Serviced Apartments, being erected by the Sureka Group, with office space limited to 3500 sq metre offices.

"One of the many challenges and a unique phenomenon about designing housing complexes in an Indian city would be creating a harmony in design elements between low, middle and high income groups in the same complex," said Coates.

According to Tan, it appeared to be a better idea to bring low-income groups to a single area and provide them with superior amenities, and do the same for middle income and high income groups in dedicated zones. This would provide a better holistic perspective to a city.

Commenting on demand for housing in Kolkata, Todi remarked that about 15 per cent of space in most housing projects from different companies was being bought by non-resident Indians. Coates and Tan agreed that this boom had to be tempered by a long-term vision of Kolkata which would have to be defined by the government and involve preservation and restoration of old buildings and the city's heritage.

They said Kolkata could learn from Hong Kong, which had lesser planning controls but had firm checks on indiscriminate promoting and reclaiming of the harbour.