‘Podium’ parking to minimise flood risk

Orders issued allowing parking floors above ground for multi-storey buildings

Last year’s floods may not have brought about a dramatic change in ground-level stormwater drain system, but it got builders thinking of alternatives to cellar parking. The norm for both residential and commercial buildings is to go deep, dig one, two, three or more basements for parking. Cellars also served as power, internet, telephone and other points, and massive inundation of several areas led to major disruption besides vehicle breakdown. Pumping out water caused more chaos as sewer lines burst to capacity and overflowed with complaints galore to the municipal authorities. Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India-Hyderabad chapter (CREDAI-Hyd) scoured through the National Building Code (NBC) and parking norms in cities like Mumbai to come forth with ‘podium’ floors proposal, which is a ‘horizontal projection (platform) extending beyond the building footprint on one or more sides, and may consist of one or more levels’.