Tata realty lines up many projects

Tata Realty & infrastructure Limited (TRIL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Sons, is looking at executing Rs. 30,000-crore worth of projects over the next five years in real estate, infrastructure, logistic parks and airports.

In the real estate business, the company has projects worth of Rs. 8,000 crore for setting up residential apartments and special economic zones (SEZs) in Chennai, Nagpur, Kolkata and Gujarat.

Giving these details, Sanjay G. Ubale, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer, said the company was developing Ramanujan IT City on the Old Mahabalipuram Road in Chennai at an investment of Rs. 3,500 crore. The total size of the SEZ will be 4.5 million sq. ft. of which IT office space will be 35 lakh sq. ft. Besides, the company would have 100 units of serviced apartments and 100 units of residential apartments, he said.

The company was planning to set up a residential project in Amritsar in 7 lakh sq. ft. with an investment of Rs. 400 crore.

He said TRIL was also developing a large residential and commercial project in Nagpur with an investment of Rs. 600 crore. Similarly, it was putting up a Rs. 800-crore residential project in Kochi.

The company was also executing three SEZ projects for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). Mr. Ubale said the IT-SEZ project in Pune was being built at a cost of Rs. 1,200 crore. Similar projects will also come up in Gujarat (Rs. 800 crore) and Kolkata (Rs. 700 crore). Mr. Ubale pointed out that the company would soon be investing Rs. 600 crore in a 10 lakh sq. ft. residential project in Chennai. He, however, did not indicate the exact location.

On infrastructure business, he said the company at present had an order book of Rs. 1,500 crore for executing a project in the National Highway connecting Pune and Sholapur in Maharashtra.

Mr. Ubale said the company had signed an agreement with Acits, a leading private equity investor, for a joint investment of $200 million to carry out roads and highway projects.

The company hoped that the total business portfolio in this segment would reach $2 billion in another four years. The company was also bidding for road projects in Mumbai, he added.

The Hindu, 5 August 2010

Costs drive home dreams to Suburbs

 

Aspiring homeowners are now looking to relocate beyond the city suburbs, with private builders offering dream homes in affordable townships in these areas, complete with entertainment, schooling and hospital facilities.

With land becoming sparse and costlier within city limits, the only option for the builder is to amass at least 3,000 acres of land in rustic corridors off OMR, ECR or GST, says C. Devadasa Sundaram, chairman and MD, CeeDeeYes, whose upcoming township Chennai Pattinam, on OMR near Thiruporur has flats ranging from Rs 22 lakh to 45 lakh.

“A township is economically viable for both the builder and the consumer, only if we are planning to accommodate 3,000 families in comfortable two or three BHK homes, and provide schools for the kids, a mall, multiplex,” he says.

Even as private builders are catering to a large middle class segment that is ignored by government projects, they do seek participation from the state. “While we have taken care of other infrastructure like sewage, electricity and water, we have recently written to the government to improve the road facilities,” Mr Sundaram says.

Apart from smoothening unmotorable road tracts, the government must take a keen interest in reducing construction costs, says Nakshatra Roy, True Value Homes. “Material like doors, windows and tiles are much cheaper to import, but when faced with the levy of 30-40 per cent on such items, the builder will have no choice but to pass it on to the buyer, who is already burdened with EMIs,” explains Mr Roy.

Deccan Chronicle, 2 Aug 2010

Railway link to Puduchery to link OMR and ECR

 

CHENNAI: The east-coast railway line from Chennai to Puducherry just got a little closer to realisation as Southern Railway has okayed the final location survey to identify land use and cost.

Part of an ambitious plan to connect Chennai to towns along the East Coast all the way up to Kanyakumari, railway board has given the go ahead to build the line from Chennai to Cuddalore at a cost of Rs 523 crore. This, however, may go up to Rs 600 crore. The board has approved the new line by including it in the supplementary budget of September 2007. The last railway budget had allocated Rs 25 crore for initiating the project.

The railway line between Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR) and East Coast Road (ECR) will connect Sholinganallur, Kovalam, Tiruporur, Mamallapuram, Kalpakkam, Kuvathur, Cheyyur, Marakanam, Kunimedu, Kuiyilappalayam, Jipmer in Puducherry, Bahour, Varakalpattu, Tirupadipuliyur and Cuddalore Fort. The line will run close to the sea at Mamallapuram.

“We have awarded a contract to carry out a final location survey. It will also identify from where the line should take off – Perungudi or Chengelpet,” said Southern Railway chief administrative officer R Ramanathan.

According to initial plans, the 180-km line will take off from Perungudi MRTS station. But, there is also a view that the line should start from Chengelpet so that it can be used for freight transport. “If it starts from MRTS, we cannot operate freight trains,” he added.

Southern Railway would explain to the Board about the pros and cons of starting the line from Perungudi and Chengelpet. “The line can be linked to Perungudi and also Chengelpet,” he said. If it is linked to Chengelpet, the coastal line can be connected to the main railway network through the Chennai Egmore-Kanyakumari southern trunk line.

Meanwhile, a Perungudi-Cuddalore line will enable passengers to board an Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) to Mamallapuram and then switch to conventional trains to Puducherry or Cuddalore. Travellers will be able to reach Puducherry in two hours, as against the five hours via the current line through Chennai Egmore-Villupuram-Puducherry.

The survey, which is the final leg of procedures before a new line gets approval, will assess the land required and identify plots through which the line would pass. Surveys to identify passenger feasibility on the route have revealed that the line will be viable as more people travel? from Chennai to Puducherry and Cuddalore because of the recent developments along the OMR and ECR.

“After completing the final location survey, we will prepare an estimate and send it to the railway board for sanction of funds. The project may cost Rs 600 crore,” said Ramanathan.

Times of India, 2 August, 2010

Housing for Slum dwellers

CHENNAI: Giving green signal to the state government’s move to create 3,000 more tenements for slum-dwellers and tsunami-affected people, the Madras high court has dismissed a PIL against the re-settlement project at Kannagi Nagar in Okkiam Thoraipakkam off Old Mahabalipuram Road (Rajiv Gandhi Salai).

A division bench comprising Justice Elipe Dharma Rao and Justice KK Sasidharan, rejecting the PIL of Susetha, however, directed the authorities to provide clean and safe environment for the locality, where already more than 12,500 families living on the banks of Cooum, Adyar rivers and Buckingham canal had been relocated.

Underlining the government’s constitutional duty to safeguard the citizen’s right to life, the judges said: “Right to life under Article 21 does not mean an animal life, but to living life with human dignity.”

Advocate R Vaigai, counsel for the petitioner, sought to restrain the authorities from reclaiming or filling land in the Okkiam Thoraipakkam village off the OMR, and wanted the court to ban construction of any more tenements for slum-dwellers. Infrastructure facilities such as drinking water and drainage were not enough for even existing families, and the area was a marshland as per the 1911 settlement register, she said.

Advocate-general PS Raman, however, said the state had to shift about 50,000 families from various slums in the city, and that the area was not a marsh. Distinguishing the area from the Pallikaranai marshland, Raman said the PIL had been filed due to mistaken belief and political ill-will.

When the PIL was admitted a couple of years ago, the earlier bench had appointed an expert committee to go into the issue and furnish a report. The committee, too, felt it was an ecologically sensitive area where no further construction activities should be permitted. Instead, the entire region could be handed over to the forest department, it recommended.

The judges, rejecting the recommendations and censuring the committee for drifting beyond the terms of reference, said Okkiam-Thoraipakkam did not fall under the prohibited zone and that it was neither a marshland nor backwater area, as claimed by the petitioner.

Directing the authorities to provide hygienic and clear living environment in the region, the judges said civic neglect of basic needs would turn the residents towards anti-social activities. “The state is burdened to provide not only mere living rooms but also living conditions to the residents,” the judges observed, adding that the state and its organs should secure the rights and interests of citizens and ensure their life with dignity.

Times of India, 29 July 2010

Land Banks lose ground

Developers will increasingly move away from land banking to avoid being tied down to an illiquid asset in an evolving market.

The last two years of slowdown saw companies with much-needed liquidity getting locked up in land even as they came under pressure as demand for built-up space dropped and prices corrected across all major cities.

Developers say they will be looking more at shorter time lines for development and delivery of projects and not invest in land for the long term. Unless a company has particularly deep pockets and is willing the take the risk, real-estate companies will shy away from acquiring land to build up stock. A spin-off from this could be a sobering effect on land prices, feel developers.

This point was emphasised at a recent meeting organised by the National Association of Realtors, where it was emphasised that joint ventures with land owners was a pragmatic approach to outright purchase. An added benefit is that the price discovery was more transparent as land owners get a clear idea of market price of the final product.

Shorter timelines

According to Mr Nakshatra Roy, Director, Corporate Operations, True Value homes India Pvt Ltd, companies have realised the need to be more agile and responsive to market trends.

A few years ago, supported by a buoyant market that seemed to be on a prolonged upswing, developers were interested in building up land stocks. Land was relatively low priced, and funds were available for acquiring land.

But the recent turbulence in the market and price correction has had a sobering impact. Also, with land prices getting overly heated, private equity players and other financiers were more cautious. They prefer to invest in projects rather than in land now, he says.

Mr Roy pointed out that a company with a few hundred acres of land faces a development time of over 8-10 years to fully exploit the land parcel and get the products to the market.

This made it vulnerable to changing economic and market trends. Developers have realised the need to look at the short term, ideally they prefer to buy smaller parcels of land that can be developed over three-four years and plan on having a pipeline of projects.

Take, for instance, Chennai, he says. In the last few years, four-five growth areas have emerged, including Old Mahabalipuram Road, GST Road to the south, Poonamallee High Road, up to Sriperumbudur, and Ambattur to the west of Chennai. Why would companies be locked up in any one location, he asks.

Mr R. Kumar, Managing Director, Navin Housing & Properties Pvt Ltd, said that the market trends that had allowed developers to invest in land over the long term no longer exist.

Previously, relatively lower land prices, a booming market for built-up space, availability of funds for land acquisition had all contributed to developers building up land banks. But now the focus is on liquidity and reacting faster to market trends. Developers now need to exploit land holdings and concentrate on completing projects.

Soaring land prices, even as prices of built-up space corrected, have also made land banks unviable.

Over the last couple of years, developers have cut back on prices in line with market trends but land prices have remained steady.

A leading developer pointed out that in all the major developing corridors on the outskirts of Chennai, land prices have soared 6-10 times in the last five years. In areas where land had been available for Rs 25-30 lakh an acre five years ago, the land owners are now demanding a few crore rupees.

The developer said that on the outskirts of Chennai — 25-30 km to the south or west — there is stiff resistance to prices of residential property. Most activity was in the price range of Rs 30 lakh an apartment but builders would not even recover the construction costs if they were to launch a new project on land purchased at current levels.

Joint ventures

Mr Chitty Babu of Akshaya Pvt Ltd, who has in the last five years tied up over 15 joint ventures on Old Mahabalipuram Road, popularly known as the IT corridor, said joint ventures are the way forward.

Akshaya had been among the earliest to launch residential and commercial projects on the OMR and had procured land through joint ventures to avoid locking up investments. Joint venture is an ideal option to meet expectations of developers, land owners and customers, he said.

While it may be tough to arrive at a mutually satisfactory price for land, prices of built-up space are relatively more transparent. The partners in a project can work backwards to arrive at a viable valuation for land pegged on the product price to be able to fairly share profits, Mr Babu said.

Business Line, 25, July 2010

Service apartments in Chennai – order of the day

Clean and unfussy. With this as the mantra,the city’s serviced apartments sector is waking up to its true potential. LAKSHMI KRUPA explores

At the end of a long working day you are back in your apartment.You connect the Wi-fi, head to the kitchen and make yourself a cup of coffee, turn on the television, read the newspaper, feel at home. Well almost. Only because this isn’t your apartment. You are a part of one of Chennai’s growing hospitality phenomena,the serviced apartment industry. A serviced apartment, traditionally, operates like a temporary home. It offers the comfort of a hotel stay while also giving you the space to feel at home. Attached kitchens,on-call laundry service,cab pick-ups,it’s a mix. “Most travellers who come to Chennai are looking for value for the money they spend. That’s where a serviced apartment fits the bill,”explains AP Santhosh,Group General Manager,The Lotus Serviced Aparments. The Lotus is an associate of the GRT Hotels and Resorts and has two properties (both in T Nagar). “Companies,following the recession,have understood that they can save money from certain areas. Instead of five-star accommodations they are now looking at comfortable and clean spaces where basic needs are met,”he adds. This may have well been the reason for the soaring popularity of serviced apartments in the city.In fact,most properties we visited were upgrading themselves or were in the process of acquiring another building.
Typically,most serviced apartments offer a good mix for one to choose from,a standard room,a deluxe room,a suite with a kitchen,and sometimes,a luxury suite.Kitchens are most popular with the Koreans and the Japanese,we hear. They mostly prefer buying fresh ingredients on their way back from work and cooking;what better way to relax at the end of a hard day M Senthil Raj the CEO of Amma Naana,a department store on Chamiers Road, whose clientele also includes a generous mix of expatriates, is now taking the plunge into the serviced apartment sector too. “Many factories have found their way to Tamil Nadu,and Chennai in particular,this means many expats are visiting the city on business, he says overseeing work at the store and the completion of the serviced apartment building. Alternative (that opened its doors last night), in Co-operative Colony, behind Hotel Sheraton Park & Towers opposite Amma Naana.”Serviced apartments are increasingly popular in the city mainly because most expats prefer a relaxed atmosphere and a neat kitchen where they can cook their own meal,”he explains.Senthil has also roped in Sandy’s Chocolate Factory,a restaurant,to setup shop at the building.”We will offer Continental cuisine at the restaurant,”he says. The new property has eight apartments of which two are studio apartments and the remaining are onebedroom apartments,with a kitchen,a flat screen TV and an elevator.
To keep and grow their business,most serviced apartments usually tie up with corporates in order to ensure regular clientele.While some take the marketing route,most rely on the power of the internet.Star City serviced apartments,for instance,has held its position as a preferred corporate destination with a strong internet presence.Muruga Bharti,Managing Director,Star City,says,”We were growing at the rate of one property a year,but due to the rising real estate prices around the year 2006-2007,we stopped. However,we are now coming up with a new property on Ponamallee High Road, near Dasaprakash Hotel in Egmore,with a built-up area of 55,000 sq ft. The property has a swimming pool,gym and offers stays on daily,weekly and monthly basis.”Star City has apartments in three areas (T Nagar,Nungambakkam and Santhome) in the city already.”We are now moving on to a new segment called Star Villas,where we will lease independent homes and service them for our guests.We will handle the complete maintenance of the property and currently hold four such in T Nagar,Neelankarai,Thiruvanmiyur and Uthandi.”
The IT and industrial sector has been a large contributor towards the sector and Velacity a property on the Taramani-Velachery Link Road in close proximity to the IT hub of the city,OMR,is tapping into this guest demographic.Says Shafee Ahmed,Director,Operations,Velacity,”We are about a year old here and have realised that professionalism and clean,unfussy rooms are the need of the hour.All else can be outsourced.For instance,if a guest needs a cab we will arrange for one through a third party;the same goes for laundry as well,”he explains.Velacity is now on an expansion mode too with a few new luxury rooms to be added to the existing 28-apartment building with amenities including gym,restaurant,Wi-fi,etc.
The bottom line in this industry is that the client needs a space that is neither interfering nor imposing.And players in Chennai are slowly but steadily rising up to the occasion with quiet confidence and maturity. 

AMENITIES YOU CAN EXPECT AT MOST SERVICED APARTMENTS

 

IN HOUSE  – WI-FI, GYM, RESTAURANT, KITCHENS

OUTSOURCED – CABS, LAUNDRY

TARIFF – BETWEEN Rs 3,000 – Rs 4,000 / NIGHT

Times of India, Property Times, 24 July 2010

Builders Ride The Residential Boom

The housing market moves up sharply, raising fears of another bubble building up

Along the Bangalore-Dodaballarpur Road, a dozen odd kilometers from Bangalore’s city centre, the lush green fields are broken by sprouting housing projects. Beyond the suburb of Yelahanka, there is frenetic construction activity. It’s a mix — spanking upmarket projects such as the Prestige group’s grandiosely named Monte Carlo lie cheek by jowl with clusters of cheap pink and white buildings. Further down the road, the Puravankara group is recreating a little Venice in the 23-acre ‘Venezia’ project, complete with crisscrossing canals, gondolas and presumptuous walk bridges.

Meanwhile, on the link road that connects the Bangalore-Bellary highway with the new Devanahalli airport, farmers are loading bundles of fresh cauliflower on a van. Just across the road is a big board announcing ‘Premium Meadows Villas’. The cauliflower patches will soon give way to Bangalore’s rapidly expanding concentric circles of urban development.

It is not just in Bangalore’s outskirts that you will see construction sites teeming with activity. In Delhi and its surrounding towns, in Mumbai, in Kolkata and in dozens of small, tier-2 towns, new building projects are being kicked off and dormant projects are being revived. In Mumbai, huge ultra-premium high-rise towers are being launched, while in Delhi and its surroundings, a whole host of housing complexes for every possible price range have been initiated. You would never guess that just a year ago; the real estate sector was in doldrums as projects stalled, buyers stayed away, and construction firms struggled with land banks and debt loaded on during the go-go years of 2006-08.

There is a slight difference between the current construction activity and the one during the boom of 2006-08. During that period, while many residential projects had been announced and built, the big focus area for many of the big builders was commercial space. Currently, there is relatively little activity on the commercial property area, which is still struggling to offload the huge inventory built up during the boom. Pankaj Kapoor, CEO of property market tracker Liases Foras, estimates the unsold inventory of completed and under-construction commercial property at 147 million sq. ft. Organised retail, too, is slow in picking up and many of the 350 or more malls in the pipeline have delayed completion with retailers reluctant to seal lease deals.

But interest in buying homes has picked up sharply once again. Reserve Bank (RBI) data shows there has been a robust growth in the disbursement of home loans in the past few months. Fresh home loans disbursed for 12 months ending 26 February 2010 (the latest data available) amounted to Rs 22,880 crore, compared to the Rs 16,431 crore disbursed over the same period in the previous year.

During the slowdown of last year, home loan demand and disbursement had fallen sharply. For fiscal 2008-09, home loan disbursement by banks fell to Rs 19,165 crore against Rs 26,802 crore in 2007-08. These RBI figures do not include loan disbursals by housing finance companies, but experts say the trend in these has closely mimicked the bank loans. For instance, in the case of HDFC, loan disbursements during fiscal 2009-10 were Rs 50,413 crore as against Rs 39,650 crore in the past year, representing a growth of 27 per cent.

Mixed Trends In Low-Cost Housing
At the trough of the slowdown from July 2008 to end 2009, desperate builders abandoned premium projects as demand had plunged. They turned to mass, ‘budget’ homes to keep the market ticking. Some cautious builders are still sticking to affordable housing — houses costing less than Rs 20 lakh in the metros. In April, some big Mumbai builders signed an MoU with the Maharashtra government to build 500,000 affordable homes in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) over five years. The government has promised to relax density norms. In the National Capital Region — Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida, Ghaziabad and Indirapuram — dozens of low-priced projects have been announced. But a number of builders who had embraced low-priced housing projects are slowly upgrading many of these to target middle- and higher-income groups. These segments, after all, offer far better returns.

Business World, 5 July 2010

Realty bounces back

 

Yes,but not at boom-and-bust levels.This time,the market appears to be more realistic

For years, Noida resident Arvind Ratra planned to buy a flat. He never got round to it until a few months ago. What helped him decide was a slew of affordable options suddenly available on the market. He bought a threebedroom flat in Noida Extension,a hotbed of construction activity in the National Capital Region (NCR),for just Rs 26 lakh. The price was right,the location was right. So I went ahead, he says.
There are many like Ratra who have invested in property recently. Those in the real estate business say that 2010 has been the best year in a long time for buyer and seller alike. Honey Katiyal,CEO of real estate consultancy Investors Clinic,says the number of units sold in Delhi/NCR alone this year have been more than that sold in the last decade.
Does this indicate a property boom Santhosh Kumar,CEO of real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj,is cautious:  The scenario needs to be seen in the proper perspective. Overall, the residential market in India is emerging from a difficult time.The outlook is positive,but as markets become more mature over a period of time,it is likely to translate into more purchases.
Many believe the spurt in market activity is mainly due to revival of projects that had slowed during the recession. Katiyal likens it to opening a tap that had remained closed for a long time.
The good news, say analysts, is that prices have become more realistic. In Bangalore,for instance,buyers are mainly those who put plans to buy on hold last year due to the downturn. Even though sales are happening, prices are not being pushed up unrealistically,like in Mumbai where prices have shot up by 30% to 40% in the last six months alone, while in Bangalore, prices have moved up marginally by 5% to 6%, says Raj Menda,president of Karnatakas CREDAI (Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India).
A key reason for the revival is the plethora of affordable options aimed at the mass market. Given the current demographic outlook of India and future urbanization levels, this segment is likely to find favour for a continued period of time, provided it remains affordable, says Kumar. Katiyal agrees that Nano products are driving the market now. The Rs 10-16 lakh segment, untaped till now, is seeing growth.
Affordability means many property buyers now are endusers as well, marking a shift from the time when speculators and investors dominated the market. Earlier,even in as conservative a city as Chennai,there were many speculators who wanted to buy,sell,make a profit and exit the market. This is changing now. Suresh Krishn,MD of Chennaibased Isha Homes,says that now end-users make up 90% of property purchasers. Theyre sensitive about price and keen on timely delivery.While the preference is for ready-to-use apartments,projects that get completed within a year are also getting sold.

In cities like Ahmedabad as well as in its 25-30 km periphery,there has been a flood of new projects in the last six months,says Jaxay Shah,president of CREDAIs Gujarat chapter. This is mainly on account of demand from end-users and investors,many of whom are NRIs.

But the revival is not uniform across the country. The Jaipur market is working overtime to regain stability. During the boom some years ago,every other person became a developer, says Kunal S,a real estate professional. They floated projects but could not bear the meltdown effect. Money was in the marketplace but it was all investors money. To push their projects now, developers are adding freebies,which werent part of the original deal.

It is the opposite in Nagpur,where housing has traditionally been more expensive than other cities. Experts say that when prices plummeted in bigger cities such as Mumbai and Pune two years ago,the Nagpur market survived. Though demand fell due to high prices, builders did not budge as they had spent their own money. The result is that the flats now being built here could be anywhere between Rs 80 lakh and one crore. But the demand, says a builder,is from a limited section only. There arent many affordable options for the middle-segment. Even in boom towns like Pune,the market hasnt fully recovered.Experts say that Pune and adjoining areas are facing land scarcity,restricting development of the real estate market.
Even so,the future looks bright.Markets are quite adaptive as they realign themselves to potential growth, says Kumar. Areas likely to get connected to main infrastructure as well as having right pricing will continue to drive the residential sector.

Times Of India, 19 July 2010

CMRL plan of action to connect Chennai

As much as possible,the CMRL plans to acquire only public/government lands. Only when unavoidable will they attempt to acquire private land.

About 17% of the total land required for the project is likely to be acquired from private parties. The total requirement of land works out to 49.74 hectares (123 acres). Out of which,29.64 hectares (73 acres) of land belongs to the State government,11.63 hectares (29 acres) of land belongs to the Central Government and 8.47 hectares (21 acres) of land will be acquired from private parties.

To avoid and minimise the land acquisition from the private parties,the following action has been initiated by the Chennai Metro Rail Limited: Wherever possible,stations and other facilities will be located on Government land. Efforts are being made to further reduce the private land acquisition by suitably modifying the design and making it comaptible with local site conditions In most private properties,only the set back area is being acquired for the project.

The CMRL has engaged an international real estate agent,CB Richard Ellis South Asia Private Limited (CBRE),to assist them in fixing the value of private properties. The range of values suggested by CBRE will be taken into consideration as one of the inputs for private negotiation with the land/building owners to have a mutually agreed settlement. The CMRL is also planning to offer transferable development rights (TDR),the scheme of compensation for acquiring private lands,in consultation with the Chennai Metropolitan Development Association (CMDA). Property owners will be given the option of optiong for TDR certificates. Under this scheme,the property owners will be given TDR certificates issued by CMDA in lieu of cash compensation that will indicate the area in the certificate based on applicable FSI to the acquired land. The area indicated in the TDR certificate can be built at a new location over and above the FSI of the new location subject to certain conditions TDR certificates can also be sold to real estate promoters or land developers. In case the TDR certificates are used for building in a suburban area, there will be a corresponding increase in area mentioned in the TDR based on the guideline value of a suburban area.

Courtesy: CMRL

Times of India, Property times, 17,july 2010

 

Times of India, Property Times, 17 July 2010

 

The city will play host to a Metro Rail in 2015.What does this mean to realtors in the city RADHIKA RAMASWAMY finds out

Today,the value of land and cost of apartments are not the only deciding factors that one takes into account before buying a home.The character of a neighbourhood,infrastructural development and, most importantly, connectivity of the area are the key determining factors that influence new-age buyers.The much awaited Chennai Metro Rail which is in various stages of construction and completion across the city is the next big public transportation system for Chennai. Even as the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL),a joint venture of the Government of India and the Government of Tamil Nadu,is in talks with various government agencies and private parties for land acquisitions in various parts of the city,several developers are keen to understand the connectivity and the area that the railway line will cover to know the potential areas of residential and commercial development.

According to CMRL sources,there will be an appreciation of land value by 15 to 20% along the places where the metro rail tracks will pass.While some parts of the city,especially the expensive and well-developed neighbourhoods like Adyar,Guindy,Anna Nagar and Nungambakkam,will see a steep increase in land value as a result of the metro rail,other lesser-developed areas like Vadapalani,Mannadi,Washermanpet and Thiruvottiyur will see a spurt in residential occupation.
“The metro rail across the country has become synonymous with faster mobility and comfortable travel,”says Sudarshan K S,Chief Operating Officer,Ozone Group.”Today,when it comes to real estate development, connectivity takes precedence over price and market conditions.I am happy that the line is passing through Anna Nagar where we are currently developing our first residential project in the city,Metrozone, he adds.

Times of India, Property Time, 17 July 2010