Ghaziabad authority proposes stricter checks to curb growth of illegal constructions

Ghaziabad: The Ghaziabad development authority (GDA) is planning to bring a change in the procedure related to construction of residential and group housing projects

Ghaziabad: The Ghaziabad development authority (GDA) is planning to bring a change in the procedure related to construction of residential and group housing projects to check large scale violations of sanctioned plans by builders, which results in building more units than sanctioned in these projects.

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Officials said they have proposed stricter checks during the initial stages of construction, instead of taking corrective steps once the building gets complete.

For group housing projects which have plot area of more than 2000 square metre (sqm), officials have planned to conduct on the spot inspections during the construction of the plinth of a building. They said that by inspecting the plinth area, one can easily gauge the ground coverage of the project, which gives away whether there are going to be any deviations from the already sanctioned plan.

“If a deviation from the sanctioned plan is witnessed at the plinth level, the developer will be immediately told to submit a revised plan at the onset and not at a later stage, as has been in practice till now. The check at plinth level will ensure developers do not deviate from the approved plan and try to get the extra construction regularised at a later stage,” said Kanchan Verma, authority’s vice chairperson.

“Finally, a check will also be taken upon completion of construction and minor deviations can be regularised, as provided by the bylaws. As a prevalent practice, developers generally come mid-way during the construction stage and submit multiple compounding plans for regularisation of deviations. It becomes difficult to keep track. Once the checks are put in place at the onset, the compounding or regularisation will be allowed only for extra height of the building. The new proposals will be taken to the GDA board for approval,” Verma added.

Officials said by increasing the plinth at the initial stage, developers generally leave scope of construction of increased residential area or more units and end up creating third party interest by giving possession to homebuyers.

In such a case, if the authority resorts to any punitive action, homebuyers become the immediate sufferers, officials added.

“There are about 110-111 group housing projects sanctioned and a cut-off date for each project will be defined to put in place the new procedures,” Verma said.

Explaining the plan for putting the checks in place, GDA’s town planning department officials said present practices have allowed deviations in about 80% of group housing projects as well as almost 100% of single unit plot properties.

“Apart from plinth level checks, we will be conducting several rounds of slab level checks during the construction stage to detect the intended violations. The compounding of violations will be done only once, unlike the present practice of clearing multiple compounding maps during the construction stage,” said Asheesh Shivpuri, authority’s chief architect & town planner (CATP).

According to norms, deviations of about 10% from the sanctioned plan can be regularised by way of paying up compounding fees and any further deviation can be regularised by purchasing additional floor area ratio (FAR), which comes at a higher price than the normal FAR. The purchasable FAR allowed is 20% or 33% or 50% of the normal permissible FAR.

“As a practice, developers avail purchasable FAR after completing construction of the building, if they construct more than sanctioned limit. According to new procedures, it can only be availed at the time of map sanctioning if the developer intends to add more construction. The purchasable FAR will be a one-time payment and will not be allowed to be deposited in installments, as has been a practice. This ends up delaying the authority’s revenue,” he added.

Officials said the idea behind deploying checks during the construction stage is to put a stop to creation of third party interest by adding more housing constructions against the sanctioned plan.

They added that the GDA has about ₹1,000 crore stuck on account of developers not paying up various charges, including compounding charges.

Single unit plot properties:

For single unit plot properties, the authority has decided that compounding of only 10% deviations will be allowed as per norms and checks will be maintained by inspections of the site. The construction of multiple units on single unit plot properties, having area below 2,000 sqm, was allowed by GDA from January 2015 in only nine residential localities in Ghaziabad.

During a recent inspection, the authority found about 1,900 extra housing units against sanctioned units on single unit plot properties in at least three sectors of Indirapuram. The inspection has been ordered for other localities as well as authority officials recently faced action by senior officials in connection with ongoing constructions beyond the sanctioned limit at Rajendra Nagar.

“Strict checks will be put in place by observing the stilt area, staircase areas, etc. The observation of such areas can reveal the intended constructions over such plots. During the checks photographs will be taken along with the date and time, and no deviations beyond 10% limit will be allowed. As observed, we have deviations in about 50% of group housing projects and about 80% over single unit plot properties,” Shivpuri said.

According to officials, unlike group housing projects, the purchasable FAR component is not allowed for single unit plot properties.

He said there is also a general practice that small-time developers, while making deviations beyond 10%, give affidavits that they will demolish the extra constructions, but end up not doing it.

“Now, such developers will have to produce pictures of demolition undertaken by them. Otherwise, their maps will not be released,” he added.