December 4, 2025: Mumbai’s major infrastructure projects, including the Coastal Road and the expanding Metro network, have triggered significant surges in real estate values. Since the first phase of the Coastal Road opened, properties along the Bandra to Andheri corridor have recorded increases of 5 to 15%. Metro-aligned localities have seen even steeper growth. Homes previously priced between Rs 35,000 and Rs 40,000 per sq ft are now quoted at Rs 50,000 and above. Several micro-markets along the Aqua Line have registered 10 to 20% appreciation within a one-kilometre radius of stations, with some spikes reaching 30 to 40%.
These numbers reveal a key reality. The financial gains primarily benefit developers, landowners, and investors. Ordinary homebuyers, especially salaried middle-class families, are not seeing improved access to housing in these connected neighbourhoods. On the contrary, rising prices increasingly push them to the city’s peripheries, undermining the very promise of improved accessibility that infrastructure is meant to deliver.
The root of the problem lies in how Transit-Orientated Development (TOD), is being implemented in India. Introduced nationally in 2017, TOD was intended to create walkable, mixed-use, mixed-income neighbourhoods around transit hubs, combining efficient mobility with equitable housing opportunities. In Mumbai, however, TOD is often reduced to a mechanism for increasing Floor Area Ratio (FAR) and generating higher returns for developers. Authorities have largely treated TOD as a tool to unlock more buildable area rather than as a framework for inclusive urban design. This approach converts public investment in transit into private profit rather than broader social benefit.
As a result, infrastructure projects drive up land values, which developers capture through high-end residential supply. While mobility improves, access to affordable housing does not. TOD, in its current form, amplifies inequality instead of reducing it.
Mumbai can alter this trajectory if policy and planning priorities are recalibrated. Affordable housing must be mandatory within TOD zones, linking FAR benefits to inclusionary quotas for economically weaker and middle-income households. Simultaneously, when transit projects raise land values, part of the financial uplift should be reinvested into public amenities, pedestrian infrastructure, last-mile connectivity, and rental housing. Planning must also move beyond density-focused construction to integrate transport, housing, services, and public spaces holistically.
Infrastructure alone cannot guarantee equitable development. Without deliberate policy interventions, TOD risks becoming a mechanism for asset inflation, benefiting developers at the expense of ordinary residents. Mumbai now stands at a crossroads. The city can choose to use TOD to create genuinely inclusive, connected neighbourhoods, or allow it to produce luxury enclaves where connectivity exists for all, but homes are affordable for only a privileged few.
