Good morning, this Wednesday, the Calcutta High Court issued a significant order allowing apartment owners of a housing complex in New Town to cast their votes online for the selection of representatives in the board of management of the gated community.
Across India, there are so many apartment owners who live in different cities/countries and are unable to participate in the formation of the RWAs/management boards that manage their complexes.
With this order acting as a precedent, absenteeism could now become a thing of the past.
Simply fish out your smartphone and cast your vote in favour of Verma ji or Hossain saahab. It could just become as easy as that mighty soon. And we have a feeling that it will.
🏃♀️🍎🧃
Home Prices Rise In Top Indian Cities
CREDAI has reported 4% growth in Indian home prices. This is as high as 11.3% for Delhi-NCR and as low as 1% for the MMR and Bangalore.
Key Take-Aways
Is all well? Yes, there’s steady demand.
Buyers are picking up ready-to-move units, whose prices are outstripping their under-construction peers by up to 27-53% in markets like Gurgaon. As a result, developers are making recovery noises.
📌 CREDAI’s report even shows demand increasing despite home price hikes.
But there’s still inflation, the war and soaring raw material costs to think about.
What lies ahead?
More sales for reputed developers and another price hike of 5-10% sometime soon.
On The Backburner: Affordable Housing In Rourkela
Steel City Rourkela is facing a Gargantua sized roadblock with its affordable housing blueprint under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Urban (PMAY-U) 2022.
What’s stonewalling?
The industrial hub is not on the State Government’s priority list for affordable housing and Rourkela Municipal Corporation's (RMC) projects are languishing in the dust.
What’s at stake (or stuck)?
1️⃣ RMC AHP-1 (800 units) - Approved but no work yet.
2️⃣ RMC AHP-2 (800 units) - No approval yet.
3️⃣ Madhusudanpali rehabilitation project for 4,900 families by RMC - Status unclear.
4️⃣ RDA AHP for 720 EWS units at Chhend Colony- No tender released yet.
The losers?
Slum dwellers in areas like Ambedkar Nagar, Chhend Colony, Pradhan Colony, Dhamra Basti, Haripur Basti, Malgodam, Koel Bank, and more.
The RMC had even identified 6,100 people in 55 slums on the land of the Rourkela Steel Plant for EWS units. But those folks continue to live like the prawns in District 9. But nothing came out of it.
Rays of hope?
RMC is hoping for AHP-1 to take off soon, with or without SpaceX's support.
The other hope is a 2017 Chhend Colony RDA project with 500 units, where 50% of the work is done and completion is expected soon. This is the first one in Rourkela under the 2015 Policy for Housing for All in Urban Areas.
Weekend Conversation Starter
Final Destination: How Retail Stores Are Making A Comeback
Physical retail has almost reclaimed its place in the mainstream post COVID-19. And rightly so. But there’s an evolutionary catch here - destination building.
Confused about what we’re saying?
Developers and brands are trying to build retail locations into destinations or it places for customers.
How is this happening?
🎯 Data-Driven Design: Demographics, psychographics, community preferences - data is helping create retail destinations that hit the right notes. Consider a shopping outlet that offers dining experiences, an outlet with experiential elements, stores with living areas, pop-up events and more. Harnessing region-wide data is helping shape evolutionary retail designs that build connections with communities.
🤝 Community Bonds: Shopping outlets are diversifying their presence and becoming one-stop local hubs. From tapping into cultural and natural elements to special artwork, architecture, knick-knacks and more, they’re acing it, while building bonds with local communities simultaneously.
🎳 Engagement Zones: Retail outlets are now offering common spaces which are akin to living rooms or engagement zones for local citizens. They’re creating spaces that foster interactions and gatherings. Wi-Fi, seating, dining options, and other amenities are attracting and retaining footfalls.
With people swamped by a deluge of online options, physical retail is reinventing and reshaping its core philosophies to suit the current context.
It is no longer about just being that neighbourhood store. It is about making a comeback as a community hub, a place where you shop, dine, interact and even relax for some time.
---------------
Lacoste, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, and other marquee brands are featured at Amazon’s first physical clothing store in Glendale, CA, which has just thrown its doors open for public.
Fyi, Amazon has bitten off its fingernails trying to break into both fashion and IRL shopping: Not only has it garnered a reputation for peddling more counterfeits than Palika Bazaar, but also it announced just two months ago that it’s shuttering its brick-and-mortar bookstores and other non-grocery locations.
We're closing this week with that one. See you next week. Enjoy the weekend. 💚
☕ The Crew@Ginger Chai