Tree Management in Lower Parel, Mumbai.

Old mill compounds and the lanes around them hold rain trees, figs and banyans that predate most of the buildings. When a compound is redeveloped, each tree needs MCGM's Tree Authority before it is cut or moved, and older trees now carry heavier compensation. We number every tree in the compound, work out which can be kept by adjusting the layout, and plan transplanting where retention is impossible, so the permission application reflects real options rather than a request to clear.

Lower Parel was the heart of Girangaon, the mill district, where textile mills with tall chimneys stood among workers' chawls. As the mills closed through the 1980s and 1990s, their compounds were sold and rebuilt under the city's mill-land rules, and the area is now a cluster of office towers, malls, hotels and high-rise flats. Some mill walls, chimneys and chawls remain between them. Plots are compact and built to the edge, and the railway and flyovers cut through. The rebuilding is not finished; redevelopment of older chawls and buildings continues around the mill compounds.