New groundrules forlandowners

Under new rules, BMC to offer FSI incentives to encourage landowners to hand over plots for public amenities

MUMBAI: To encourage landowners to hand over plots reserved for public amenities, to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the Excluded Part (EP) of the Development Control and Promotion Regulation (2034) has offered the incentive of additional floor space index (FSI).

An earlier provision in the EP sanctioned on September 24 had withdrawn such benefits.

The DCPR 2034 came into force from Tuesday, after the state issued a corrigendum with corrections to the EP sanctioned on September 24. Municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta said, “This change was made to encourage people to hand over their reservation plots . ... If such plots are handed over within the first five years, it will increase DP implementation .”

The BMC marks certain plots with a reservation as per its accomodation reservation (AR) policy, meant for public amenities like hospitals, markets, or parking lots. The BMC has calculated the number of amenities needed in the city and believes the AR policy is enough to meet the requirement. In order to maximise implementation, it has proposed the Urban Development department offer attractive sops to landowners in the EP. As per the new DCPR, owners will avail permissible FSI of the entire plot in addition to FSI potential of the portion handed over to BMC. FSI refers to ratio of the total buildable area on a plot to size of the plot. It indicates how The EP will be now implemented for all new and upcoming construction projects in the city It is a set of rules governing all construction activity in the city Floor Space Index refers to the ratio of the total buildable area on a plot to the size of the plot. It indicates how high a building can be constructed high a building can be built.

For example, for a plot measuring 1,000 square metres, the developer has to surrender 400 square metres to the BMC. If he does so within five years, he can The Development Plan (DP) along with the Development Control and Promotion Regulations (DCPR) was notified by the state government in May 2018 The DCPR was divided into two parts — Sanctioned and Excluded Parts. The EP includes all the provisions where substantial changes have been made to the plan by the government after it was submitted by the civic body. construct up to 2,400 square metres vertically. If the 400 square metres are handed over after five years, the developer can avail development potential of only 2,000 square metres .

Construction benefits are also offered to those whose plots are reserved for road widening. Plots affected by such setback used to get additional development rights.

According to the new DCPR, construction on such plots will now get double the development rights.

Architect Vilas Nagalkar said, “Earlier, the TDR benefit given for setback lands was upto 1.33 which will now increase up to 2.5 in the island city and 2.0 in the suburbs. This will clear a major roadblock for widening of several congested roads in the city.”