Will low-rise Delhi take to high living?

NEW DELHI: NEW DELHI: At Kathputli Colony near Patel Nagar in west Delhi, strings and puppets are making way for the capital's tallest building. With a planned height of 190m, and 54 floors, Raheja Phoenix will not only be the city's first true skyscraper (generally defined as a building taller than 150m) but also a sounding board for its elite's residential preferences.In a city where garden bungalows are the height of aspirational living, and lower floors fetch a premium in residential towers, selling apartments worth crores at vertiginous heights might prove a challenge, feel experts. But they also believe the success of this project could be the long-awaited stimulus for a gradual transformation of the city's skyline.Anshuman Magazine, head of international property consultants CBRE, says the time has come for Delhi to grow vertically, especially because land prices have skyrocketed. And breaking from the city's mid-rise trend - residential buildings of 12-15 floors - some developers are already constructing premium residential towers of 20 or more floors.
Parsvnath Developers, which has both residential and commercial buildings in Delhi, has planned more than 20 floors at two of its projects: La Tropicana at Civil Lines and Parsvnath Paramount at Subhash Nagar, near Rajouri Garden. DLF, too, plans to build 20-odd floors at its projects in Greater Kailash-II and Moti Nagar.
With a planned height of 190m, and 54 floors, elite residential colonies in Delhi will soon have to measure up to Raheja Phoenix, the capital's tallest building.
The developers sound bullish about skyscrapers. R K Arora, CMD of Supertech, which is building the 255-metre, 60-storey North Eye project in Noida's Sector 74, says, "The trend has always been popular in Mumbai but is now catching on in north India. We are going to launch another high-rise project soon in Sector 94." Says Raheja Developers' chairman Navin Raheja, "Community living will become a part of life in India soon, with condominiums becoming the norm. It's time we capitalized on the trend in Delhi as well." His company has plans for another skyscraper project in the NCR: the 57-storey Revanta in Gurgaon. Another company, Ireo, recently announced it will build a 51-floor project, Victory Valley, in Gurgaon. Is it a lasting trend? With rates starting around Rs 8,800 per sq ft, these apartments are by no means cheap, but Magazine says regulatory hurdles and poor infrastructure, not price, could hobble the trend. "FAR (floor area ratio) restrictions mean that you pay more if you go vertical, as compared to the same FAR nearer ground. The ratio needs to be addressed to allow really tall buildings to come up in Delhi," he says, adding that sanitation and traffic issues also need to be addressed to promote high-density living in towers.
While the Phoenix project will be remembered as a milestone in Delhi's vertical rise, it will not pitchfork the city into Mumbai's league where several buildings taller than 200 metres are under construction. But the Delhi project can draw some solace by association, as it is a joint venture with the company that built the world's tallest building: the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It also exceeds the city's currently tallest building - the 112-metre Civic Centre - by more than a Qutb Minar's length. Housing residential, retail and commercial structures across 14 acres, the Phoenix is one of DDA's few public-private partnership success stories. The project will also create 2,800 dwelling units for the slum dwellers it has displaced.