Mumbai, Aug. 18 -- The city has heard of cooperative housing societies opting for self-redevelopment. However, in a rare instance, a bungalow in the tony suburb of Bandra will go through a make-over, financed by its owners. The Pereira family has decided to get their 87-year-old abode rebuilt into a multistory tower where they plan to occupy the top four floors and make the rest available to interested buyers. The bungalow, Victoria Cottage along Veronica street, was built in 1938 by Dominic Lewis Pereira, who earlier lived in Mahim. Dominic later sold the bungalow to Didacus Everest Pereira. At present, Didacus's son Vivian and his wife Myra, have been living at the bungalow since their marriage in 1975. "Victoria Cottage is part of the larger St. Sebastian Homes Cooperative Housing Society, which has 110 plots," said Akbar Jiwani, project management consultant of Victoria Cottage. In its vicinity, multiple plots have already been redeveloped in the conventional way, where the land rights were given over to a developer who then managed the project. "For the last over 20 years, multiple builders have been approaching us with offers, but we never gave redevelopment a thought as that was never a priority for the family," shared Vivian's son Mark. It was only in 2018 that the family began considering reconstructing their cottage containing two bedrooms, a hall, a dining room, and a kitchen. Co-incidentally, in January 2018, the state government had introduced the self-redevelopment scheme to encourage the practice in Mumbai. The Pereiras began discussing the project with developers in 2019, but always hit a dead-end. "It was only in 2021, we got serious about self-redevelopment," Myra said. In 2024, the family attended a seminar organised by Jiwani on the subject of redevelopment and was convinced to reconstruct their 5,167 sq.ft plot into a 14-storey building with a total area of 21,000 sq.ft. In the last year, the family oversaw more than 20 iterations of the proposed redevelopment plan, and this month they will apply for the first of a series of approvals. The current blueprint shows two parking towers, two basement floors, and 14 residential floors. Each floor is to have two 2BHK (bedroom, hall, kitchen) apartments with an area of 875 sq.ft and 909 sq.ft. As per the plan, each apartment will have three balconies. Mark explained that for decades their family had lived in a spacious bungalow with a height of 22 feet. "Instead of the usual 9ft floor-to-ceiling height, we will have 11 ft," he said, and added that the family wanted more space than usual flats. The Pereiras will move from their ground floor residence to the top four floors. The remaining 20 apartments will be sold in the open market to recover the cost of construction and make the redevelopment project profitable. Compared to their current cottage, the Pereiras will get around 400% extra space in the new building. "In the first round, we intend to sell the flats to our relatives for a discounted price. Thereafter, it will be marketed in the open market as per the framework of the St. Sebastian Homes Cooperative Housing Society," Mark said. The construction cost will vary depending upon the area being constructed. The apartments will be built at a construction cost of Rs.4,500 per sq.ft and the staircase area at Rs.2,200 per sq.ft. To finance the project, the Pereiras will personally invest 10% of the cost and draw the rest from a bank. By 2026, the family will have to vacate the property, and in the next two-and-a-half years the construction will have transformed their Victoria Cottage into a multistory Victoria Cooperative Housing Society. As per Jiwani, the newly built apartments will have smart home technology, and the society will have a rain water harvesting system, a sewage treatment plant, solar power, an electric vehicle charging station, and other such amenities. "Facilities can be customised as per one's requirement," Jiwani said. "This is because it's a self redevelopment project where all the details are in the hands of the owner," he added....