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Plotting the rules for high-rises
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The State government is thinking of stipulating a minimum plot size of 50 cents for the construction of a high-rise building. K.A. Martin finds out why the government is thinking along these lines and seeks the reactions of builders to this move.
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It is learnt that the government is keen to implement these suggestions at the earliest, subject to Cabinet approval.
– Photo: H. Vibhu
How big? A minimum plot size may be prescribed for high-rise buildings.
The incident in which two nuns were killed by bricks falling from a high-rise building under construction at Nagampadam in Kottayam raised a controversy over the implementation of building rules and triggered a re-examination of the rules on the part of the Town Planning Department which wanted the spirit of the rules of to be strictly adhered to.
In the wake of the Kottayam incident, there was a Ministry-level thinking to bring about important changes to restrict building practices such as the ones that caused the death of the two nuns.
It was as a result of this thinking that the town planners in Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam and Kozhikode were entrusted with the task of taking a second look at the Kerala Municipal Building Rules (KMBR) 1999 and to suggest changes that would help create a better environment and stricter adherence to the rules.
Plot size
One of the suggestions that was put up for approval was that the minimum size of a plot should be 50 cents for a high-rise building to come up on it. This is the first time that a suggestion has been put up prescribing the minimum size of a plot for a high-rise building. A high-rise building has been defined as those that are above 15 metres or five storeys.
An official who was involved in the process of examining the KMBR recently said that Kerala was one of the States in the country where there was an acute shortage of land. And what was available turned out to be very costly.
The situation prompted builders to expand vertically. Looking around Kochi, recently, the official found that there were a large number of high-rise buildings coming up in and around the city. Most of these buildings had 18 to 22 storeys and it was time that some consideration was given to safety and the natural environment.
The building rules and practices that were being followed in major urban centres such as Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai were closely examined when revisions were suggested, said the official.
The official pointed to some of the restrictions used in Hyderabad for instance. The Hyderabad Urban Development Authority places no restrictions on Floor Area Ratio in some areas. However, complementing this was the prescription that the road leading to the site should at least be 18 metres wide.
Now, prescribing an18-metre road for high-rise buildings would choke the entire building activity in a city such as Kochi. The recent suggestions took into consideration the peculiarities of Kochi and its long-term requirements.
The suggestions for revision were forwarded to the Ministry of Local Self-Government. These suggestions were now being considered by the Law Department. It was learnt that the government was keen to implement these suggestions at the earliest, subject to Cabinet approval.
Builders’ grouse
The builders said that they were not aware of the details of the revisions in the building rules that had been suggested.
Kerala Builders’ Forum (KBF) Chairman George E. George said that low land availability in Kerala was an important factor that has to be considered when building rules are applied. The land availability in cities was even more restricted.
According to him, if a new area was developed and the prescription that at least 50 cents of land was needed for housing a high-rise building it would have been better.
The KBF official felt that people who own land in the city should be given options so that a person who had a smaller plot was able to utilise it for purposes other than building a single residential unit.
The first question, said Mr. George, was what was the objective of bringing about the latest changes? Was it that more open areas were needed and that certain setbacks had to be achieved?
He said that if no vertical expansion was possible, people who own smaller plots would go in for buildings that are spread out which would leave no setbacks and the covered area would go up. This would not be desirable either.
Mr. George said that restrictions were welcome but that the land owners should not lose out. The economics of the restrictions had to be worked out too.
Call for discussion
Another point raised by the KBF official was that the government could have called for interaction on the new changes. The builders would have liked an open house on the building rules and the timely changes that were needed. “If these interactions take place several doubts can be clarified,” said Mr. George.
He also said that interactions would help avoid one-track thinking because it will bring other ideas together. The best of these ideas can be incorporated, he adds.
K. Lava of SkylineSFS said that one of the more immediate effects of the new restrictions would be that land and subsequently housing would become more costly. It might not be possible to find somebody who owns 50 cents of land in the city, he said.
He said that the builders’ community expected the government to have a public hearing on the issues which would bring out the best ideas.
The government was also considering several other important changes that would have immediate impact on the real estate business in the State. One of the suggestions being considered by the government was to give land ownership rights to owners of residential flats and to introduce a slab system of taxes.
The ownership of land on which high-rise apartments were being built now rested with the builders or the contractors.
This would now change with the proposal for distributed ownership. Tax collection would also undergo change with taxes being collected from the owners individually.
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