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Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) says large-scale cluster redevelopment and targeted policy reforms are essential to address Mumbai's deepening housing affordability crisis, as the city's developable land nears exhaustion. Speaking at the ET Realty Real Estate Conclave 2026, MHADA Vice-President and Chief Executive Officer Sanjeev Jaiswal highlighted that Mumbai's housing affordability index — where an average household spends roughly half its income on home loan EMIs — reflects structural constraints in the supply system. He outlined plans to open 800-1,000 acres for cluster-led redevelopment in integrated layouts and called for rationalisation of premiums, development charges and taxes to reduce housing costs by up to 25 per cent. MHADA's roadmap, he said, would help deliver a substantive share of future housing supply and underpin broader efforts to expand access across income segments.
Mumbai's chronic housing affordability challenges could be eased significantly through cluster-based redevelopment and policy recalibration, according to senior officials from the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority. Advertisement
At the ET Realty Real Estate Conclave 2026, hosted in Mumbai, MHADA Vice-President and CEO Sanjeev Jaiswal said that the city's developable land is almost fully utilised, with more than 90 per cent already accounted for, underscoring the diminishing scope for greenfield expansion. Against this backdrop, he argued that conventional, piecemeal building-level redevelopment models would no longer suffice to meet long-term housing needs in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).
Jaiswal remarked that Mumbai's housing affordability index — indicating that the average household commits roughly half its income to home loan equated monthly instalments — points to structural bottlenecks that require systemic interventions. To address these, he said MHADA was preparing to unlock 800-1,000 acres for cluster redevelopment for the first time, consolidating smaller land parcels into integrated layouts of 60-100 acres that can support higher-density, mixed-use residential environments with improved civic infrastructure, open spaces and community amenities.
The cluster development concept involves pooling adjacent or proximate sites — including cessed properties and older housing clusters — into planned residential pockets, a departure from isolated interventions. Projects such as GTB Nagar and Abhyudaya Nagar have advanced under this model, Jaiswal noted, with several other clusters in pre-development stages. He said that cluster approaches not only expand housing supply but also enhance overall urban transformation by integrating amenities and land use at scale.
MHADA's strategy is aligned with the broader Maharashtra housing roadmap, which targets the delivery of about 2.8 million affordable homes across the MMR by 2030. Within this framework, MHADA expects to contribute, directly or indirectly, approximately 0.8 million units through its schemes and redevelopment programmes. To date, nearly 50,000 homes have been delivered in the last two-and-a-half years, and Jaiswal said that 60-70 per cent of future housing supply is likely to emerge from approved or prospective cluster projects.
Jaiswal also underscored the importance of policy reforms to lower the cost of housing delivery. He suggested that rationalising premiums, development charges and taxes on affordable housing could reduce sale prices by up to 25 per cent in certain segments, improving accessibility for lower and middle-income households. Other observers have similarly emphasised the need for regulatory clarity, streamlined approvals and digital platforms to support land aggregation and project execution.
As Mumbai grapples with rising costs, an ageing housing stock and limited land availability, MHADA's cluster-led, policy-backed approach represents a significant shift from fragmented redevelopment towards integrated urban renewal. If realised at scale, this model could expand affordable housing supply and set a new template for redevelopment-driven growth in land-scarce metropolitan regions.
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