How Sanjayanagar slum residents designed a vibrant housing community

The word ‘slum’ instantly conjures up images of dense warrens of closely packed single-room shanties, where residents, deprived of even the most basic amenities, live packed together in living conditions few of us can imagine.

Yet, this is the reality of one in six city-dwelling Indians.

According to the 2011 census, more than 65 million Indians live in slums, with more than 1 million living in Dharavi, in Mumbai. While Dharavi, with its micro-industries with an estimated annual turnover of $1 billion still remains cramped and overpopulated, 300 km away, in the city of Ahmednagar, the residents of the Sanjaynagar slum have created a vibrant community with shared spaces, play areas and even room for livestock.

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The two-acre settlement looked very different four decades ago when people first moved to the area.

In the 1980s, the municipal land was primarily marshy and weed-infested. Residents were forced to wade through knee-high water to get to work and complete their daily chores. The complete lack of infrastructure and dismal living conditions forced the residents to take collective action and demand better living conditions.

Fortunately, for the residents, the fact that the government-owned the land they were on made them eligible for several government programmes.

Redevelopment support

The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) Mission (PMAY) was one such scheme providing homes to the economically weaker sections of society.

The Sanjaynagar Slum Redevelopment Project was approved for development with each resident getting Rs 1.5 lakh from the Central Government and Rs 1 lakh from the State Government to subsidise the construction cost of their homes on new land the Ahmednagar Municipal Corporation would provide under the PMAY programme.

To initiate the rebuilding project, the design studio Community Design Agency partnered with local NGO Snehalaya which has been working with the community for more than two decades. CDA works with marginalised communities and helps them design their own living environment according to their needs. CDA is supported in its efforts by the Curry Stone Foundation (CSF), a US-based NGO launched in 2007 by architect Cliff Curry and archaeologist Delight Stone.

“Tapping into this strong relationship that Snehalaya had with the community helped us organise the residents to come together for the design and redevelopment of Sanjaynagar,” says Sandhya Naidu Janardhan, Founder & Managing Director of CDA.

Sandhya credits the success of the project to how close-knit the community is. “This aided in the process of collectivisation and democratisation which are the cornerstones for a successful participatory methodology that was applied right from the inception of the project,” she says.

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Designing development

On 8 March this year, CDA handed over 33 homes as part of the project called 'Swapnapurti' to the residents of Sanjay Nagar. “This was the first phase of the handover of the entire project that comprises 298 families. The work for this project started in 2018,” Sandhya says.

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Every home in the project has been designed with input from the residents. ​“Building consensus amongst the residents was the first step in the participatory design process. One of the critical aspects of this process was to have the community be the decision-makers whilst the architects and social workers acted as facilitators.

The families living in Sanjaynagar have a strong connection to the land and were initially adamant about not going into a multi-storey structure which was necessary considering the limited land area,” Sandhya says. The residents said the main guiding principle for their design was wanting a better future for their children.

“Many mothers felt that having safe and healthy housing would create better opportunities for their children and future generations,” she says.

The residents were also very particular about good lighting and ventilation. Social interaction with neighbours was high on the priority list and they wanted to stay connected with their community.

“They wanted to have adequate open spaces that would allow them to continue engaging in with their fellow residents and be able to spend time outdoors. A number of families own livestock, so space for their animals and pets will be factored into the new redevelopment. Many families also requested space for plants and outdoor seating. These have been integrated into the design of the open areas,” Sandhya says.

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Dreams fulfilled

The residents chose the name Swapnapurti in the first phase of the project. Translating to ‘Fulfillment of Dreams’, the families in this building were the first who volunteered to go through the process of redevelopment without any precedent to look back on.

Built during the pandemic, the project was not without challenges. “One of the main challenges we faced was the lack of a precedent for a redevelopment project such as Sanjaynagar. This required us to use other examples of similar initiatives to help not just the residents but also the city officials to visualise the many possibilities and opportunities of such a process,” says Sandhya.

The COVID-19 pandemic also impacted the livelihoods of the residents, which meant the loan terms needed to be revisited. “The financial mechanism that was set up allowed for providing very context-specific loans.

This helped in reaching out to the lenders and borrowers and through a consultative process, negotiate ideal repayment terms through the changing circumstances,” says Sandhya explaining that the iterative and participatory design process allowed flexibility to make changes as work progressed.

“True to its name, it was indeed a dream come true not just for the families who will reside here but also for all of us involved as this first phase was built in the middle of a pandemic. Also, the completion of Swapnapurti has provided the much-needed encouragement and impetus to the remaining families who will need to go through the process of having their homes designed and built in the next couple of years,” she says.