Chennai should be redeveloped to improve quality of life

Real estate and industry experts have opined that the southern metropolis should grow vertically to produce more affordable and mass housings and to retain its sustainability in growth, infrastructure facilities should be improved multi-fold.

They were speaking at a conference organised by GIREM (Global Initiative for Restructuring Environment and Management), an industry body to help create sustainable business eco-systems and social infrastructure, in Chennai on Thursday.  The event was held to discuss about Chennai's potential issues, challenges and its solutions, and to forecast future urban needs to make the city more liveable. 

The conference has witnessed a series of deliberation by eminent speakers from the real estate fraternity and industry experts like C&W and DTZ.

“Chennai will continue to grow exponentially, as it is attracting tremendous investments in IT, automobiles and manufacturing sectors. This will create lakhs of job opportunities in the corridors. It is time for governments and private sectors to plan proactively than reactively to send a clear message to the nation and world at large that Chennai is a city for business and life balance”, said Shyam Sundar S Pani, President, GIREM.

“Our aim is to work closely with the State government and the industries in Chennai to look at planned urban development in sync with our mission, which is to be a pro-development body”, he further added.

During the course of discussion on the topic ‘Opportunities and Challenges in Chennai - Ideas for development’, M V Satish, Executive Vice President and Head Buildings & Factories, Larsen and Toubro, said, “Chennai has to grow vertically, as against horizontally, and redevelop the city with high–rise, affordable, mass housing and mixed urban development to improve the quality of life.”

V.S Sridhar, Director and City Head – Chennai, DTZ in his address said, “Proper development will happen only when private and government sectors go hand in hand, in developing power, water and other social developments.”

On investment scenario at real estate sector, Ritesh Sachdev, Executive Director, C and W, said, “With the planned improvements in the infrastructure across the city and the strong fundamentals Chennai is only bound to attract increasing investment interest from occupiers.”

Comparing Chennai to Bangalore Hariharan, Office Director - C and W said, “Bangalore has only weather as the favouring factor, while Chennai has two ports, automobile, manufacturing growth sectors in addition to IT, as well as huge integrated developments like 1400 acre township by Mahindra World City and upcoming Ascendas Township, etc. Chennai is not dependent on IT/ITES alone unlike Hyderabad or Bangalore.”

Speakers also spoke about how and why is self-sustained satellite sectors best suited to provide work life balance? They say, having IT, automobile and manufacturing industries, and being the cultural capital of south India, Chennai can be in forefront and attract investments. 

The conference was attended by, among others, representatives from office and industrial space occupiers, infrastructure developers, service providers’ property advisors and urban and building technology providers.