mumbai in a relief to developers and flatbuyers the supreme court has upheld the ecosensitive zone esz notifications for the sanjay gandhi national park sgnp in 2016 and for the thane creek flamingo sanctuary in 2021in august the esz monitoring committee for sgnp had issued directives to the municipal commissioners of mumbai thane and mirabhayandar to stay all ongoing projects that did not have its approval though the corporation had issued noc and not to issue nocs to new proposals the move came after a supreme court order on june 3 that there should be no development within 1km of the esz around a national park sanctuary or protected area it later modified its directive allowing ongoing projects to continuenational real estate development council maharashtra filed an interim application before the supreme court for clarity as several housing projects in mumbai thane navi mumbai mirabhayandar were affectedadvocate saket mone who appeared for naredco maharashtra said we pointed out the esz notifications for sgnp and tcfs were already issued and the esz boundaries had been demarcated and notified all development is now regulated in line with these notifications we informed the court that construction activity is permissible in the esz he saidthe apex court accepted the plea and pointed out that in para 42 of its june 3 order it had already given the specific instance of sgnp and guindy national park in chennai as exceptionspara 42 states it was argued before us that the 1kmwide nodevelopment zone may not be feasible in all cases and specific instances were given for sgnp and guindy national park in mumbai and chennai metropolis respectively which have urban activities in very close proximity these sanctuaries shall form special casessandeep runwal naredco maharashtra president said in a city like mumbai where the sgnp is surrounded by urbanisation it would have been impossible to implement the 1km nodevelopment norm within the esz this order is a huge relief not just for developers but also flat buyers who have invested in these projects at least 100 new projects are under construction at this stage in thane mulund goregaon malad another 5060 projects are underway in navi mumbai which would have been impacted