Vision Heights – A True Integrated Township for All Ages at Rajahmundry, AP, India

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Vision Heights – A Special World in 50 acres – “A True Integrated Township for all Ages”

“Vision Heights” is a concept more than a gated community. It is a passion of a few engineers who come from various experiences locally and internationally to create a truly integrated township in their home land where they hail from. It is a tribute to their “Home Land” to create a community that will last for years to come.

1 Evolution
2 Methodology and Approach
3 Concept and Master Plan
4 Why Rajahmundry and the specific Location
5 Product Mix
6 Facilities and Amenities
7 The Team
8 Closing
9 See Also
10 Sources

Evolution

Evolution of the concept was done after extensive research on quite a few gated communities that have come up during the last 7 – 8 years across south India. The success factors of some of the best township that have been created, the inhibiting factors of the projects that are still struggling to bring residents into the townships were studied by the core team from Vision. While the local study is important to understand what is missing or Gap in the current models, the team also studied various communities in the USA, Singapore, UK and other developed places to understand sustainability of these townships. Some of our findings are:

1. The words “Integrated” , “Townships” are very loosely used and they don’t mean to the fullest extent of living in the “Township” where all the basic facilities are “Fully Integrated”. Hence they are merely “Gated Communities” but not “Integrated Townships” Essential Elements of a township:
a. Residences
b. Basic facilities –

i. School
ii. Hospital
iii. Departmental Stores for day to day needs
iv. Entertainment and Health related amenities

c. Infrastructure to enhance life style

i. Clean, Green and Wide roads
ii. Safe and Secure Community
iii. Clean Water, etc

2. “Indian Culture” and evolution of “Indian societies” is missing in most of our townships. These townships seem to be just replicas of western culture where the independent families are widely accepted while Indian culture and societies are “Patriarchal and Joint Families” in nature. The essential elements of Indian Societies are:

a. Head of the House Hold – 1st Generation b. Young and Middle Age children – 2nd Generation c. Grand Children – 3rd Generation and the future of the country d. Guests

3. To create all these kinds of facilities in a township requires large land bank. Due to high cost of land inside the city, we are left with going away to the suburbs of the city is the only option. Even after going to suburbs, due to the current models of making plots and selling them as investment vehicles in India, the land bank on the roads where there is good connectivity is hard to get by. So sometimes we would have to go far from the city to create these townships at a reasonable cost. When we go away from the city it is even more important to create the “Integration” of all basic facilities as mentioned above.

Methodology and Approach

Our approach has been very systematic to derive the concept before the final product mix is defined for the entire township. The following methodology was employed while working on conceptualizing this project.

1. Define the “Need Hierarchy” 2. Product Mix Definition 3. Financial Viability of the project 4. Final Product Mix Design

In an effort to define the above steps, the first important thing is to understand the customer needs, which is step #1. For that to be achieved, we have followed the below mentioned approach.

1. Primary Research: Primary research is to directly speak to the customer and get the inputs. For this to be effectively achieved a professional third party organization was required. For this IMRB International (www.imrbint.com) was employed to test the theory and get direct feedback from the customer on the product, price and place factors.
2. Secondary Research: Secondary research was done by our own organization by talking to various types of users such as local developers, suppliers, some sample customers, working class people such as masons, carpenters, plumbers, etc

Concept and Master Plan

With the above mentioned evolution and the research to support the project a final concept was arrived at. During the research it was very obvious that the theme of Joint Family system, Patriarchal societies was an important ingredient of the Godavari districts and it would be well received. Based on this research, the final concept was derived at. The center of the concept is “Connecting all ages of people” in one township to ensure “A complete life cycle” to enable evolution of our society.

Also while connecting all ages, the center of the connection point being the two ends of the string – “The Seniors”, who we call it as Golden Agers with 50+ years of experience on this earth and “The Juniors” – Ready to learn anything you are willing to teach. So in the master plan, both the “Golden Age homes for 50+” community and the “Nursery school” are placed in the middle of the township. The rest of the facilities and residences are placed around this center of the township position.

In the master plan, the residences are divided in four major individual gated communities for social and physical separation while keeping all of them in one township. Thus creating a “Joint Community”, a modern day “Joint Family”. Each community will have its own security and compound wall along with the parks for them.

The basic facilities such as School, Hospital, Culture house, Commercial space and corporate guest houses are placed at the entrance of the township so that the external to the township people as well as the township community could leverage them without disturbance to each other.

Why Rajahmundry and the specific Location

After all the research and analysis done by IMRB International and Cushman and Wakefield, USA, Rajahmundry was picked as the right location targeting both the Godavari districts i.e East and West. Reason being, Rajahmundry is centrally located for both the Godavari districts, as well as between Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam on NH5, golden quadrilateral road connecting Chennai to Kolkata. The most essential connectivity enablers are available in Rajahmundry such as Railway, Road with NH5, Air with an airport being upgraded for night landing at super fast pace, nearest to the Kakinada port for being a good trading hub, etc.

Also being the traditional economic hub of both Godavari districts is a major plus to the location. Most recent development being, Rajahmundry is transforming into an educational hub and a migration destination for all the surrounding village rich farming community is an added advantage.

After selecting, Rajahmundry as the ideal location, the challenge was to identify the right location for the project. The most essentials were nearest to the educational hub and on NH5 for easy connectivity and they both are rightly fit for the location chosen for “Vision Heights” – on NH5 with 1000 ft road facing for excellent entry and opposite to GIET college and in the midst of nannayya university, close to GSL medical college, etc make this as “The happening place” – the way the locals call it.

More importantly, the future also holds great for this location as the new bridge, being built by Gammon India Ltd, to connect Kovvur and NH5 directly will be landing just 1 km ahead of “Vision Heights”. The proposed bridge will be ready by 2011, by which time the Vision Heights will be going at full throttle.

Finally, the name “Vision Heights” picked due to the fact that this particular location is the highest peak in both Godavari Districts from sea level. This makes this location ideal as per Vaastu.

Product Mix

After blending the research data and the underlying concept along with the social and physical separation to ensure privacy for each segment, the following product mix is worked out.

1. Golden Age Homes for 50+

2. Elite Residences

3. Young and Middle Age Apartments

4. Young and Middle Age Villas

5. Guests

Facilities and Amenities

1. Life Style Chalukya “Culture House”

2. School

3. Multi Specialty Hospital

4. Commercial Space

5. Infrastructure and Life Style improvements

The Team

The team includes the most professional organizations in the industry with various skills required to design, plan, execute and deliver this project successfully with predictability.

Closing

In closing, this concept would fit the perfect model township for the upcoming projects in India, keeping in view the Indian culture and the historic evolution of the Indian societies.