In Mumbai, ogling at a skyscraper and counting the number of floors with glee is still a popular game played by spellbound visitors. The city, the mecca of real estate in India, is undergoing a massive construction boom, with hundreds of skyscrapers all set to pop up. Residential towers in the city are rising beyond a whopping 100 floors and have continued their eternal search for clouds. But living in towers is nothing new to the city.

Other Indian cities are following the footsteps of Mumbai and growing vertical, with 25- to 50-storeyed residential towers. Cities such as Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata have several residential skyscrapers now doting their skyline. It is a new fad that is spreading far and wide in these cities.

Far away from the cacophony on the ground, living in the company of clouds and solitude is increasingly a craze among city dwellers, and they do not mind shelling out a premium.

“For many, staying in high-rises is an aspiration,” says Malik C, general manager (sales) of Ramky Estates, who is overseeing a tower project in Gachibowli, off Hyderabad. Ramky, like many other builders, charges an additional Rs 50 per square feet for every floor rise. Yes, that is the price you pay to stay away from the ground commotion, and beat pollution, and live rich in sunlight and cross-ventilation.

Not long ago, the Babu Khan Estate at Basheerbagh in Hyderabad was the lone high-rise building. As of now, several high-rise projects are in various stages of construction in the city. Aliens, Lodha, Lanco Hills, L&T, Saket and Manjeera, among others, are coming up with big projects in the city periphery.

Gone are the days when Kolkata had a handful of high-rises. Skyscrapers all over the city are now changing Kolkata’s skyline too. It all started with developers – including some of the leading ones like Bengal Ambuja Housing (Ambuja Realty, now), Bengal Peerless, Hiland Park and a larger number of local developers — building towers on both sides of the long stretch of Eastern Metropolitan Bypass — from Ultadanga in northern part of the city to Garia in the south. The high-rises have also come up at various connectors to the EM Bypass, like Rashbehari connector, Prince Anwar Shah Connector and Park Circus Connector. And now, even the traditional residential areas within the city, including the posh Alipore area, Ballygunge area, Behala, Lake Gardens, Golf Green and Tollygunge are seeing increasing numbers of skyscrapers.

Leading developers such as Merlin, Bluechip, Bengal Peerless, Ambuja Realty, Bengal Shristi — are all venturing outside the city, and offering home buyers an experience of tower-living in tier-II cities like Durgapur, Asansol, Siliguri and even suburban towns like Serampore, Uttarpara and Sodepur, mostly on the banks of river Ganga.

According to Sanjay Chugh, founder of Chennai-based Skylines property advisory, property developers are promoting high-rises in OMR, Chennai’s IT Corridor, as well as Oragadam/Sriperumbudur. “The land parcels chosen for such projects have wider main roads abetting them and this facilitates the property developer to get a higher FSI to the availability of 80 or 100 feet roads abetting such land parcels,” says Chugh.

Olympia Opaline, True Value Homes’ Auranya Bay and Mantri Synergy, besides Hiranandani Upscale are a few of the high-rises that have come up on OMR, while Hirco Palace Garden has come up in the Oragadam/Sriperumbudur belt.

Even though one gets larger land parcels, the choice of whether to go vertical or horizontal always comes up before the property developer. These days, the preference is for going vertical, as the move allows one to set aside land for amenities and landscaping. This actually turns out to be a USP to promote the project to the prospective buyers, who demand more open space, having spent enough of their life inside city apartments. People also prefer the high-rises as it offers better view, better ventilation and better environment, with less pollution.

Nakshatra Roy, a Chennai-based industry veteran, says the obvious reason why high-rises tend to come up in suburban areas is because of the setback rules. “To fulfil them, one needs large parcels of land”. For instance, if one is developing a 100-metre tall tower, one needs 18-19 square metre of land, to be left vacant all around the building. “That kind of land is not available in the city,” says Roy.

Hence, inside the perimeter of ‘inner’ cities high-rises with 10-12 floors (or in certain cases, up to 20 floors) are common. “However, if a developer wants to include more number of floors, say 30, he needs a minimum of four to five acres of land, which one hardly gets inside city limits. While buyers will look for pollution free clean environment that higher floors offer, builders too make money by charging an additional floor rise fees,” he points out.

Sanjay Chugh agrees as well. “The basic driving force is the availability of larger land parcel in the suburban and peripheral areas than in the city or closer to it”.

From a developer’s point of view, the floor space index rules are favourable to go vertical. “There are no unreasonable restrictions on going vertical although there is emphasis on provision of proportionate parking and open space,” says Prem Kumar, president of Andhra Pradesh Real Estate Developers Association.

Aliens Space Station, a project of real estate developers Aliens Group at Tellapur, is an S-shaped project that is among the eco-friendly buildings in India. The Rs 1,000-crore project will have nearly 2,200 units in many towers. Each tower will have 30 floors and six apartments on each floor.

In a small city like Thrissur in Kerala, where building villas is still the norm, the skyscraper trend is spreading fast. “We have been extremely successful in positioning the high-rise buildings. People want to stay in apartments for security, maintenance and community living,” says P Ramakrishnan, deputy managing director of Sobha Developers’ who is developing Sobha City, an integrated city in 55 acre, with three 26-storeyed towers.

This has three high-rise projects Sobha Topaz, Sobha Sapphire and Sobha Jade, each with with 216 luxury apartments in three 26-storeyed towers. Topaz is completed and the properties are being handed over to the customers. Sapphire is done nearly 70 per cent and will take one more year for completion. It will launch Jade this June. Each of these has come up in 2.9-3.35 acres within the Sobha City, according to Ramakrishnan.

“We have been extremely successful in positioning the high-rise buildings. People want to stay in apartments for security, maintenance and community living,” he says. According to him, growing urbanisation and changing lifestyle preferences are the main reasons for people to look to high-rise buildings. About 50 per cent of them are NRIs, mostly from West Asia. “We can say almost all our customers have some connection with Thrissur,” he says, adding that in tier-II and tier-III cities, locals will dominate the customer profile.

In some cities, there are some location-specific reasons as well. The IT hub tag that Hyderabad has is one of the main triggers for the high-rise numbers in the city. Almost all the IT companies are located in Hitech City-Gachibowli corridor. This is the main reason for the surrounding areas seeing a boom in the real estate sector, prompting many builders to go vertical.

For most locals, location, proximity to work and schools and availability of social infrastructure are the key factors that are coming come into play while selecting a high-rise. Other amenities come as icing on the cake. zz

(With inputs from D Govardan in Chennai and Ritwik Mukherjee in Kolkata)

bkrishnamohan@mydigitalfc.com