Total EnvironmentIn That Quiet Earth

In That Quiet Earth has less of the feeling of a housing project and more of a small landscape with houses well-planned and embedded in it. The project comprises 9 residential buildings and 55 earth protected villas on 37 acres with around 30 acres in active development. The other acres are saved for future phases. The idea spaces out the skyscrapers and creates wide pedestrian and cycle-friendly routes between them and allows mature natural trees to flourish where they once did, rather than squeezing towers to the edge.

There are six types of homes from a little two-bedroom to a four-bedroom apartment and a three-bedroom villa which means there is a single address for a first premium purchase or a relocation to a larger family. Each house has an own terrace garden, a studio notion for a long time that each house has a garden, not just the ground. Large window openings let the vegetation in and the material selection is brick, timber and stone that age gracefully instead than quickly date.

There is a swimming pool, gym and indoor activities in the clubhouse of 50,000 sft, under a green roof that keeps the building low to the scenery. Green roofs, terrace gardens, thick planting are not additions, but part of the community’s look and feel throughout the year. Buyers can choose from three interior themes and use the developer’s online creation tool to modify finishes and layouts.

And the end result is a planned community in the long term. Utilities are important, and include piped gas to each residence, back-up power to communal spaces, rain water collection and a tertiary plant to recycle water. Eventually these greens and facilities will connect some 1,235 homes, set far enough apart to preserve open space the defining feature. The phasing has meant that the development is manageable, with older buildings already in place and then blocks and clusters of villas following in sequence so that the community fills up by degrees rather than all at once. If you want a home that will get better with age, and want it in actual landscape rather than next to a token lawn, this is a really good call.

It’s located on the Anagalapura-Bileshivale stretch of Hennur Main Road just as the city starts to thin out into the greener low-rise neighborhoods of north Bangalore. Hennur has undergone many changes in last 10 years. The once peaceful residential route has turned into a freeway to the Outer Ring route which feeds traffic to Manyata and the airport. Schools, doctors, cafes, ordinary shops have appeared all along its length. The property has the upside of that growth with access and utilities but is setback off the main road in a more calm area.

The distances are still small for the essentials that are used routinely by families. There are a lot of hospitals within a few kilometers, day to day shopping and well regarded schools. The popular major IT hub, Manyata Tech Park is also reachable with a short drive. For frequent fliers, this location makes sense as the airport is reachable within a short time. Further, the projected Peripheral Ring Road encircles this belt and is intended to provide a huge boost to mobility around the city once it becomes operational.

The region offers something that central Bangalore cannot and that is- space, tree cover or greenery and less building density, at a price point lower than the older prime regions. The north typically represents the happy medium for purchasers who want to play the city’s growth story but don’t want to dish out Indiranagar or Koramangala money.

Location is important in the everyday routine here, too. Next to the project lies Kalkere Lake and remaining green spaces. The communal streets are for walking and cycling and the adjacent catchment is residential rather than commercial. This combo is suitable for people working in the northern office clusters and wanting to go home to a more serene environment. Green and well-connected, and still developing, it only gets stronger as the corridor evolves and the connectivity makes the case for an address such as this. It’s not just the address, it’s the direction of travel that matters to a family trying to establish themselves for the next decade and the north continues to give buyers reasons to look closer.

Much of Bangalore’s housing demand is explained by the city being the heart of India’s IT boom. Software giants and global competency centres are still hiring and so is a strong start up base and the people they employ need houses close to work. Yes, there has been speculation but the city’s residential market has remained steady for the previous few years with end-users being the key engine and premium and mid-premium buildings being well absorbed across established corridors. The international airport, the Manyata office belt and constant investment in roads and the metro have helped shift North Bangalore from the periphery of that story to the center.

The north is known for many things but most of all it is known for one thing-space to grow. The east and south are mostly built out but the north is still land and that acreage may support larger, lower density communities of the kind that this project is. Prices have risen slowly, not through the roof. Hennur corridor has witnessed a lot of multi-year growth and social infrastructure has kept up with demand.

The city’s underpinnings support that notion. Jobs continue to rise in IT, biotech and finance. The airport continues to attract investment to the north. Metro extensions continue to add well-connected addresses to the map. Demand among professionals wishing to live close to where they work is lengthy and strong. For owners, this demand ensure a consistent stream of tenants and high yields.

Another one is the Bangalore living quality. The city is temperate enough that you have wonderful culinary and cultural scenes, and neighborhoods that are crammed and central to green and suburban. The north gets the suburban end of that spectrum without moving people out of the metropolis. Bangalore has the mix of economic depth, young workforce and physical space that few can equal and it is in the north where that mix is most visibly playing out, as opposed to other metros in India.

The project is RERA-registered. The first phase is registered as PRM/KA/RERA/1251/446/PR/180519/001745. The next phases and towers are registered independently as: PRM/KA/RERA/1251/446/PR/201001/003630, PRM/KA/RERA/1251/446/PR/060722/005044 and PRM/KA/RERA/1251/446/PR/060424/006780.

Sales are on the basis of carpet space and not on the vague concept of super built up area. Amenities promised and delivery dates are on record and the developer is held to the plans filed with the authorities. The money raised in a phase is meant to finance that phase, thus the risk of diversion is dispersed across a wide portfolio. This is not a substitute for traditional due diligence, but gives a documented basis on which it might be conducted.

If you are buying a property, jot down the registration number of the precise tower or villa cluster for offer, click on to the Karnataka RERA website and check the submitted plan, the approval status and the committed time limit for the individual unit rather than the project as a whole. This property is under construction in phases, thus an early tower and newer tower may be under construction in different phases with different completion dates.

We keep the registration details, approved plans and phase-wise status to communicate and we refer consumers to the official webpage and not ask them to take any number on trust. The most crucial thing a purchaser can do before an enquiry becomes a booking is to read the record for a certain unit like its plan, its sanction and its commitment date. It’s also the easiest way to tell the difference between a well managed documented development and one that merely appears good on paper. Title records, approved plans and approvals are accessible for inspection and it would be advisable for a purchaser to study these early rather than raise a question at a later stage.

Total Environment has been constructing homes that are different in style and feel from the usual Indian homes for the last 30 years. The firm was created in 1996 by architects Kamal Sagar and Shibanee Sagar, and arose out of a basic unhappiness that enormous housing complexes rarely offer gardens or much in the way of design concern to its occupants. It was the private garden for every flat, no matter the floor. This has become the studios identity and has been imitated many since then. The development comprises cantilevered terrace gardens, unique natural materials and dwellings built around light and greenery.

The record backs the philosophy. The group has supplied up to 4.5 million sft of individually planned, furnished residential space across Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune with a substantial body of work under construction in Bangalore. “After the Rain” in Yelahanka, “The Magic Faraway Tree” on Kanakapura Road and “Pursuit of a Radical Rhapsody” in Whitefield have been popular with consumers who prefer design above rapid delivery. The company has a good foothold in the higher premium segment and has been able to sustain the same over cycles.

The developer’s peculiarity of operation is architectural and construction under one roof. Buyers deal with one team from design to handover and an online construction tool enables them to change finishes, layouts and interiors before completion so a home can be unique rather than taken as standard. This is one of the main reasons why the homes of the studio are thought out to the last detail and it is unique in the Indian real estate where design and delivery are usually separated between distinct organizations.

The company also carries the signs of a mature developer. It has institutional investment in its firm, it has an external credit rating and it has strong sales throughout its portfolio – all of which are hallmarks of a business set up for the long term and not a one-off launch. In That Quiet Earth, Total Environment takes the story of gardens, natural materials, low density and customization to the scale of an entire community in North Bangalore.

Ownership types in the project are apartments in the towers and earth protected villas on the ground. It’s all about how you want to live in a household. The apartments are ideal for those who seek height, vistas and lock-and-leave ease. They get tohave full access to the clubhouse and greens, with two-bedroom homes starting at 1,431 sqft and four-bedroom units up to 2,890 sqft. Each apartment has its own private terrace garden, so even a high tower structure has its own planting space rather than a blank balcony.

But the villas are another form. These are earth-sheltered 3-bed homes of approx. 3,430 sft that use the ground and landscape to control temperature and nestle the house into its surroundings, with a family space and a large terrace garden on the upper level. The villa type is unique to this section of town and gives a variety to the development that most towers only projects cannot offer to a home that is searching for more room, more solitude and a closer connection to the land.

The terms of ownership are simple. The homes are available as freehold flats and villas with registered sale papers and RERA registration and clear title for easy resale and financing. The scheme is financed by major banks that enable consumers to arrange purchases using normal home loans. The developer’s payment method in building is more spread out across the build than front loading.

Both formats are identical in terms of architectural language and services such as piped gas, back-up energy, rainwater collecting and reused water. It is a question of scale and place, not quality. So a client who buys an apartment has the convenience and community of tower living, but with a garden connected. A customer who buys a villa has space, privacy and a house built into the property. The spread is excellent for a young couple, or a growing family and an established home. It’s not just apartment buyers who are interested in the villas in North Bangalore as well. Either way, the purchaser is buying into a registered, bankable property in a single land-use governed community.

The investment case rests on long-term facts. First scarcity by format: a low density neighborhood of high rise flats and earth protected villas encircled in authentic planting and a treetop promenade is hard to reproduce on the diminishing acreage available in the city and hard to replicate items tend to keep value. Second, brand. Developer design led homes have a devoted client base and a premium in resale, allowing both appreciation as well as liquidity should an owner want to quit.

The third is the location. The north of Bangalore has been one of the best performers in the city with the support of the airport corridor, the Manyata office belt and continuous infrastructure progress. Infrastructure catching up with demand has led to a robust price appreciation in the Hennur pocket during the last few years. Connectivity would further improve with the proposed Peripheral Ring Road and the ongoing metro expansion. Values have previously been raised on the routes involved. One frequent way to make money is to purchase into a growing corridor before the infrastructure is put in.

Rental economics fill in the picture. Leasing is constant with significant demand from the office clusters up north. Semi-equipped apartments of a class A developer normally earns approximately 3.5 to 4 per cent of the property cost per annum, and furnished dwellings around 4 to 4.5 per cent. Those are respectable yields by Indian metro standards and the attractiveness of the address also tends to draw frequent, longer term renters, the kind owners desire.

The stats, design and brand story reveal the reasons buyers are viewing this property as both a home and an asset. The dangers remain. It is a multi-phase construction and takes years to finish, traffic can be high on arterial routes and the premium pricing means the value argument is more about quality than cheapest choice. But for the medium-term buyer, the mix of scarcity, brand, location and yield is a well-considered one.

The region is yet developing, and every truthful depiction of the opinions of residents must make a distinction between actual experience and early impression. You might say the developer has been around a long time and has a recognizable following. Seeing this builder’s property over and over again is review enough. They want to go back to the builder they lived in before for the next build. Every house in the project will include a garden and will be constructed from natural materials that will age gracefully, as has been demonstrated in other finished communities around the city.

The first response to this place reveals what is strange about it: the wide expanse of open space, the still-intact trees and canopy walkway, the lack of earth-sheltered dwellings in the north. Prospective buyers seeing the furnished experience house always comment on how much greenery the design brings into each unit and how peaceful it looks once you are set back from the main road.

It would be dishonest to show only the good part of these luxury apartments in Hennur Road. An early tower and a later tower can be in different phases, some buyers are very carefully thinking about multi-phase timing. Some echo typical North Bangalore worries about growing suburbs and rush hour traffic. Others feel that a design led luxury product should be priced at a premium and they respect quality more than cost. These are legitimate criticisms and we would prefer have a client raise them prior to an enquiry than later.

We do not publish fake testimonials, star ratings or aggregate scores and would suggest any serious buyer to speak to residents of the developer’s completed properties and visit the site firsthand. In this market reputation is created over years and through handovers, and the most useful appraisal is one a buyer takes after walking the greens, visiting a finished property and reading the record for the individual tower or villa on offer. On this presumption, the address is disposed to make a case of its own.