In apartments, buyers pay not only for a living space, but also for its relative attractiveness. How it compares with the other spaces in the apartment matters; its relation to the surrounding environment, the one outside the community, is also of significance. Pardon the real-estate jargon, the cost gets bumped up on account of floor rise charges (FRC).
The farther you leave terra firma behind and the closer you get to the skies, the greater the amount you pay for the living pad. The view from the higher floors can be arresting. The promise of better air quality can tip the scales in favour of a higher-floor dwelling unit when it concerns a family that has a senior with COPD or any other respiratory problem.
But in urban and peri-urban spaces, that advantage can be rudely nullified, sometimes with a suddenness that could leave one stumped.
On the evening of May 1, from his dwelling unit on the 14th floor, 35-year-old Ananta Charan Swain was left breathless, not by the view, but the smoke engulfing his living space in the skies.
“It was heavy smoke; it affected everyone, young as well as the old,” Ananta recalls. He points out that over the last six to seven months, from time to time, residents of Casa Grand First City, a vertical gated community, 1,680 units spread across multiple blocks, have been treated to a blast of smoke, rising from a garbage fire uncomfortably close to their community.
