On September 22nd, the playground on the Raosaheb Patwardhan Park resembled a happy space where people gathered to enjoy and chat, children played football, a few played badminton or even hula hoops. A group jived over Zumba dance moves, while others danced to the live percussion music. The crowd had gathered to celebrate the playground being saved from the clutches of cemented development. A cake was cut to celebrate the occasion.
Elected representatives from all the major political parties, Varsha Gaikwad, Mumbai head of the Congress, Priyanka Chaturvedi from the Shiv Sena and even Ashish Shelar, the local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator were present.
Also present were the local political representatives from various parties like the ex-Congress corporator Asif Zakaria.
The citizens’ movement in Mumbai got a major boost recently when the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) recently withdrew its plan to build an underground parking lot below the Raosaheb Patwardhan Park at Bandra. This is the second instance when the BMC had to shelve plans following protests by citizens groups.
Similarly, in 2023, citizens had successfully opposed the underground parking plan below the Pushpa Narsee Park at Juhu. Both these projects were being pushed by their respective public representatives, but were dropped following successful representations, strong protests and even threats of challenging it in the courts.
On September 24th this year, another project to build a 375 sq m swimming pool in Bandra Reclamation by taking over 2500 sq m of playground was also stayed for the time being following public protests. It would have led to the cutting of 41 trees.
Significance of civic action for Patwardhan Park
The Patwardhan Park lies close to the popular Linking Road, which is a very popular shopping zone that attracts Mumbaikars from across the city, and is even cited by Salman Khan in his famous song Tumse Jo Dekha Pyar Hua in the film Pathar Ke Phool.
The Patwardhan Park playground may be a relatively small ground but its victory is significant. It comes in the backdrop of several citizen movements opposing various government proposals on public spaces that threaten Mumbai’s shrinking open spaces.
Some of these struggles include the Save Aarey Movement, the movements to save Mahalaxmi’s race course ground from recreational development or the Hanging Garden at Malabar Hill, saving Mumbai’s salt pans or even the spaces reclaimed for the Coastal Road. Citizens face an uphill battle to save their open spaces from the state-initiated infrastructure projects.
The battle for open spaces has reached such critical levels that the Mumbai Architects Collective had to put out a statement demanding that the State refrain from commercialising such spaces.
Patwardhan Park victory can thus serve as a template case of the victory of residents for open spaces.
Read more: No parking please: citizens oppose BMC’s plans for underground parking at Juhu’s public park
Civic action at various levels to save Patwardhan Park
While the BMC has been building various underground car parking schemes below buildings, offices, public infrastructure projects and even below the Flora Fountain, the Patwardhan parking project has been ducking concretised development since 2018, when the tenders were first brought out. Since then, sustained united citizens’ opposition has ensured that tenders were withdrawn multiple times.
The residents responded at multiple levels. They looked at the issue of parking holistically and focussed on ways to resolve the problems.
Citizen activists like Zoru Bhathena visited the underground parking lots and found that they were grossly under-utilised and not patronised by the shopping visitors. In fact, they found that underground parking lots were misused as commercial shopping zones. They found that most of the shoppers didn’t want to park in the underground space. They preferred to park alongside the road instead, to save time and money.
They also studied the pay-n-park facility available in the underground parking lots of buildings around the park.
The citizens thus identified the primary cause, studied the demand and supply status for parking space in the locality and then came up with well-researched, alternative solutions.
The residents not just collected signatures to be presented to the authorities and to their own representatives to show cause the residents support on the ground.
The residents also put forth evidence. “Since it is a playground, we wanted to showcase that it was used as one. While local children did play there, we hosted friendly matches of cricket and football besides organising yoga, drumming, dance and activities for children,” recalls Naazish Shah, a teacher-lawyer. “Hosting events was easy and affordable after we spread the word using e-posters,” says Naazish.
They even tried to involve the children with drawings and slogans to raise voices for their playground. Local music and sports groups were encouraged to play at the garden to attract more footfalls on the ground.
A dedicated WhatsApp group of like-minded residents was formed to connect on the issue. Campaigns were designed around their slogan “Parks are not for parking”. Petitions were also launched online to muster public support to save the ground.
“We also connected with people from other forums like Rotary’s Inner Wheel club or from the Khar Gymkhana. This attracted more like-minded citizens in our fight,” says fashion designer Nidhi Chaturvedi.
The citizens also got the urban planners among them to discuss the BMC proposal and came up with alternative solutions that would easily resolve the issue at much cheaper costs.
It was important to engage with officials to resolve the issue. The residents presented their objections at all levels – right from the local assistant municipal commissioner to the municipal commissioner. They even tried to get appointments and meet their elected representatives, including their legislator, to present their case.
“We regularly met local BMC officials on this. When our local legislator didn’t meet us, about 50-60 of us went to his office with posters and banners. We also approached Aaditya Thackeray, who visited us and tweeted about it, helping generate media attention and support,”says Nidhi.
Crucial information on proposed Patwardhan Park project
While the tender and the project was officially an underground parking plan, the reality was quite different, which the residents discovered when they filed an RTI. Civic activist Zoru Bathena found that the parking lot showed an above-ground structure (seven feet in height), covering over 60 % of the park area.
The actual plan seemed to be to convert the natural playground into an artificial terrace garden with a parking lot beneath to meet the needs of a proposed shopping plaza on the periphery of the park.
Another RTI revealed that the proposed project also involved development of a four-storied structure atop the garden,apart from the three levels of underground parking. Since only two levels of underground parking are officially allowed, the consultant had also proposed changing the reservation from recreation ground to “public utility for parking” by citing “clear demonstrable hardships” in February, 2023.
It also became clear that the parking lot would actually be a four-storied plaza and not just an underground parking lot with three levels. This was definitely not a solution to their traffic woes, as claimed by officials.
Armed with this information, the citizens then realised that such a project could cause more inconvenience than they were prepared for. These led to more stronger voices against the project.
Read more: Why Mumbai needs parks more than parking lots for its 32 lakh cars
Responding to challenges from within
Within the local residents, there were certain sections that supported the idea of an underground parking lot, viewing it as a solution for their shortage of parking spaces in their societies and even the commercial establishments there. There was actually a schism between those for and against it within the residents considering the fact that parking was a genuine issue that disturbed the local residents there.
The concerns of these fellow residents were addressed and not ignored. They were taken around the area and shown the empty parking lots in the area that were already available but not utilised by the local residents.
“There was no point in building more parking lots when the existing ones were not being used. Once we took our fellow citizens around and showed them the empty parking lots below many of the neighbouring buildings, the entire argument fell flat and they could no longer raise the bogie of inadequate parking in the locality,” informs Zoru.
Official response to opposition to Patwardhan Park project
Incidentally, the proposal for Patwardhan Park was recommended by local area legislator Ashish Shelar and was also withdrawn following recommendations from the same MLA.
The local area assistant municipal commissioner had a meeting to hear the grievances and objections of the citizens. But, nothing emerged out of it.
Interestingly, post the withdrawal of the parking proposal, even Mumbai’s municipal commissioner Bhushan Gagrani appreciated the movement and was present on September 22nd with the residents..
“Citizens should raise their voices and press for their demands on issues that affect them. When the pressure of citizens is high, then we shall reconsider our decisions,” Gagrani said. He also said that the BMC would consider optimal use of open spaces and was in the process of reviving the concept of happy streets to enable optimal use of existing spaces.
Legislator Shelar, who proposed this project, said he was happy to recommend a stay on it in keeping with the demand from citizens.
Saving Patwardhan Park: Key lessons
Healthy arguments without hostility helped in resolving the issue with smiles all around without any kind of personal distrust or hatred among residents.
“Citizens must learn to be polite and humble while dealing with other citizens and officials,” advises Zoru. There was a healthy discussion. In fact, when there was another set of residents who were proponents of the idea of underground parking, those who opposed, got them together and showed them around about the various parking options in the locality. Their doubts were addressed and not ignored.
For others this was a fight way beyond a local space. Architect Samir D’Monte opined: “Democracy is a valuable thing; we should fight for it. People in China are dying to protest; they get put in jail. We don’t face that risk. We need to use our voices more. We should cherish it; If you don’t use democracy, it is going to die.”
Zoru Bhathena, who was in the forefront of saving this playground, this movement was important beyond Patwardhan Park. “Every open space, every park garden, in our city is under threat; somebody’s eye is on it. If we all feel and say that no one will listen to us, then no one will speak up. The fault lies within us. If we see something wrong, we must speak up,” says Zoru.
He said it was a big achievement, a rare victory for citizens to “convince the authorities to correct their view” and hence important to celebrate it. Former corporator Asif Zakaria said that this was citizens’ victory for fighting to “compel authorities to reverse their decision.”