The Outer Ring Road (ORR) belt is emerging as a strategic hotspot for future urban expansion and investment, real estate experts said during a round table discussion titled ‘Chennai’s Next Expansion – Why ORR will define it’. “The ORR is the first major ring road development that connects multiple routes. It touches different zones. Starting from Vandalur, it touches the Chennai-Bengaluru highway road,” said Jerry Kingsley, Head of Research India and City, Lead for Capital Markets, Chennai, JLL at the event which was presented by Casagrand on the topic ‘The Hindu Outer Ring Road-Chennai Advantage: Where Smart Investment Begins’. The round table discussion was moderated by Prince Fredrick, Civic Affairs Editor, The Hindu.

Mr. Jerry cited examples of what Hyderabad and Beijing has done. “If you look at Beijing, it has five different rings – this is a good model development. When Hyderabad ORR came, there was a real estate boom and an escalation in price by 10-15%. It also gave connectivity to commercial hubs,” he said. Mr. Jerry cited another example of how land prices went up on the Radial Road. “In 2005 the land value on Radial Road was ₹10 lakh to ₹15 lakh per acre. Now we are talking about ₹50 crore to ₹55 crore per acre at this location, almost a 700% increase,” he pointed out.

Diptakirti Chaudhuri, CMO of Casagrand, highlighted that ORR is like a connector of corridors. He then went on to explain how Hyderabad embraced ORR. Sharing details about the group’s Thirumudivakkam project he said: “We are in the process of launching it. We will start construction soon. It is a 41-acre project. We are trying to create a large infrastructure here – residential units along with social infrastructure. We are trying to put a school there and create a sports club house.”

Mr. Chaudhuri also said that the company realised that ORR would grow fast and elucidated on how comfortable living here is. “We realized that people want a certain kind of living—one that includes increasingly spacious homes, closeness to nature, and ample opportunities for children to grow away from pollution and congestion. We need to adopt a lifestyle similar to the Western way of living, where people live in the suburbs and work wherever necessary,” he added.

Karthik Bhatt, Historian and Author, spoke about how the city grew over the years. Most of the development that happened in the city were need-based approach. “T. Nagar developed to address the growing housing needs of people,” he said. Likewise ORR is also developing on need-based as congestion is high in the city. He also pointed out that there are historic locations like Thiruneermalai near ORR.

Janakarajan, President, South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies (SaciWATERs), spoke about the importance of water in infrastructure developments. “Hydrology and engineering should have a connect,” he said. “Before the development of any urban infrastructure it is extremely important for us to understand what is the location advantage and disadvantage. The 1971 topo sheets provide detailed information on all the micro-streams,” he noted.