Punjab notifies housing policy, to include areas off MC limits

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, August 1

To give a fillip to construction of affordable houses, the state government has notified yet another ‘Punjab Affordable Housing Policy 2020’ on July 24 in supersession of earlier policies announced in March 2018, May 2020, and another one on 15th July this year.

The new policy would be applicable in all areas developed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, residential and mixed land use zones of master plans and in 3-km belt around municipal limits even if it is outside the master plan or regional plan.

Minimum site area for plotted or plotted and group housing mixed colonies would be five acres and for exclusive group housing colonies it would be two acres. Minimum right of way (ROW) for approach road to colony for plotted development would be 22 to 40 feet wide or as per master plan whichever is more while for group housing or mixed development colonies the ROW would be 40 feet.

The apportionment of plotted area has been fixed at maximum 60 percent of effective site area as saleable, 10 percent for EWS (from out of total 60 percent), eight percent under parks, five percent for commercial (excluding parking) and four per cent for community centre.

The policy further lays down that maximum plot size for affordable houses would be 150 sq yds and for EWS houses it would be 100 sq yds. Maximum ground coverage of 70 per cent would be permissible with FAR 1:2.1, maximum height 11 metres (excluding mumty and parapet wall), ground plus two floors with both front and rear set back of 7.5 feet.

For the group housing colonies, minimum of 25 percent area has to be under parks, maximum permissible ground coverage would be 35 percent with FAR 1:3. Under the provisions of the policy, the Chief Town Planner (CTP) would be the competent authority for the approval of CLU (change of land use) and layout plan/zoning plan of colonies with total area of more than 10 acre while for colonies with area of less than 10 acre STP (senior town planner) would approve CLU.