Gujarat govt announces new Residential Township Policy

The Gujarat government on Thursday announced “Regulations for Residential Townships – 2009” effective from December 1-the day the State Urban Development and Urban Housing Department issued the order.

Under the regulations, all private developers who can be an individual, a registered cooperative society, an association, a firm, a joint venture, an institution or a company will have to purchase at least 40 hectares of land to build a residential township in the areas falling under the urban development authorities of Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Gandhinagar, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar. In the case of other towns and relevant urban authorities, the developers will need to purchase minimum 20 hectares of land for such townships.

The developer will have to create the necessary public infrastructure and community utilities in the township and maintain it for the first seven years.

The developer will have to set aside 60 per cent of land for residential purpose, while the rest can be put to use for public purpose infrastructure, including 30-metre wide roads, streets, recreational grounds, water and electric supply, street lighting, sewerage and storm water drainage. Five per cent of the space will have to be left for school, hospital and public amenities, five per cent for parks and gardens, each plot being of at least 3,000 sq metres. Another five per cent land will have to be set aside for weaker sections. Two hundred trees will have to dot each ha area.

On expiry of the maintenance period, he will need to transfer the public purpose infrastructure to the competent authority. The developer will also have to execute a bank guarantee equivalent to 2 per cent of the total cost incurred on the infrastructure at the time of issuing the building use permission for the township he may develop.

The regulations state that the developer will be permitted to construct a building at the maximum height of 70 metres (or 21 floors) on payment of 7 per cent of the jantri rates. The maximum use of Floor Space Index has been fixed at 1.5. Besides the permissible 1.0 FSI, the additional 0.5 FSI will be allowed on the payment of charges based on jantri rates.

The developer will also have to reserve five per cent of the land for dwellings for the socially and economically weaker sections, in the residential townships which could come up on any zone — agricultural, industrial, residential or commercial. But the developer will have to obtain the necessary clearance from the authorities concerned, for this.

The developer will have to provide cycle tracks along the internal roads of residential townships, plant minimum 200 trees per hectare, and make provisions for harvesting and recharging of rain water and solar power-operated street lights, besides the transit space and facility for segregation of bio-degradable and re-cyclable solid waste.

The government has also set up two separate committees of “prescribed officers” under the township regulations. If such townships are set up under the jurisdiction of municipal corporations or urban development authorities, the prescribed officers will be the municipal commissioners, chief executive authority or senior town planners of the authority.

For the municipality areas, the collector and chairman of the district urban development agency, chief officer, and the town planner for the district concerned will be the prescribed officers.

These committees will recommend to the government — within 30 days of the receipt of an application from the developer — to approve or refuse the proposal for developing a township. The developer will have to carry out the construction work in one year from the issuance of permission.

For complete draft of new policy(PDF) click here