Heritage panel eye on move to replicate NY Central Park in city

The BMC’s plans to give the city its equivalent of New York’s Central Park will have to pass the heritage panel’s scanner.

The Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee (MHCC) recently wrote to the state sports secretary, whose department is in charge of the grounds that would constitute such a park, saying the committee should be kept in the loop about the proposal to merge Oval, Cross and Azad maidans and create a 36-acre green expanse. Interestingly, until the demolition of the Fort in 1860, the three maidans were part of one huge expanse of open ground known as the Esplanade.

MHCC chairperson DK Afzalpurkar wrote the letter after he received representations from organisations such as the Oval Trust, Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI), AGNI, Horniman Circle Garden Trust and the Oval Cooperage Residents Association protesting against the proposal.

“After some of them placed their views at a meeting, the MHCC has written to state government asking them to share the concept plan with us. Oval Maidan is a Grade-I listed maidan while Azad and Cross maidans enjoy similar status as they are part of the Fort precinct,” said Afzalpurkar, adding any development work on these grounds requires a no-objection certificate from the heritage panel.

Oval Maidan is the only open space in the city with a heritage tag. Two years ago, the MHCC recommended Azad and Cross maidans for Grade-I listing as part of the revised draft heritage list, a list the BMC has not yet notified. 

The BMC’s proposal involves linking the three maidans with an underground tunnel that will also accommodate the present hawkers at these maidans. The plan includes creating a forest patch, landscaping, building artificial ponds, walking tracks and facilities for sports and recreation.

The heritage panel already disapproves of a move to have underground facilities that would destroy the subsoil water-table and create artificial podium gardens, but Afzalpurkar said a view would be taken only after the panel studies the proposal as and when it is placed.

“What is the point in pumping in so much valuable money on the three grounds that are already well maintained, leveled, secure and exhaustively used? While these grounds are meant to be recreational grounds, South Mumbai also has ample green spaces… Cooperage Garden, BPT Garden, Five Gardens or the Botanical Garden at Byculla. The money could very well be used for the suburbs which lacks in such open spaces,” said NGO Citispace convener Neera Punj, who was at the meeting.

She added Mumbai has 950 acres of open space, less than 1 per cent of the total land mass, and the money could be used in maintaining the neglected patches instead of splurging on beautification projects.