City farmhouses to get legit tag by paying penalty

Owners of farmhouses across the national capital will soon be able to apply for regularising their property with the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) issuing a notification, spelling out the policy in this regard, Neelam Pandey reports.

Owners of farmhouses across the national capital will soon be able to apply for regularising their property with the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) issuing a notification, spelling out the policy in this regard.

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The farmhouse owners will have to pay penalty charges, which would be notified by the DDA soon. As soon as the penalty charge is spelt out, the owners can apply to the respective municipal corporations to get their property regularised.

As per the Special Provisions Act 2011, all farmhouses with construction beyond the permissible limit are included in the categories of unauthorised developments, against which no punitive action can be taken till December 31, 2014.

As per the notification — a copy of which is with HT — all farmhouses in green/agricultural areas, as notified in the Master Plans previous to the Master Plan of Delhi 2021, which had come up prior to February 7, 2007, will be regularised as per the regulations. However, farmhouses falling in the notified forest or in the regional park area, etc, will not be regularised.

To ensure that most farmhouses are covered, government has allowed an FAR (Floor Area Ratio) of 30. The size of the plot has been kept as minimum one acre for Master Plan of 1962 and 2.5 acre for Master Plan of 2001. FAR is the amount of construction which is allowed on a plot. For instance, one can construct a structure on 3,000 sqmt of land in a farmhouse with an area of 10,000 sqmt, equivalent to 2.5 acre.

In addition to the penalties, external development charges, betterment levy as applicable will have to be paid by the farmhouse owners later. The notification has clarified that every part of the building, including the basement, which is used for formal habitation other than for storage, parking, services and utilities will be counted to calculate FAR.

According to sources, most of the farmhouses located in areas such as Mehrauli, Neb Sarai, Ber Sarai, Satabari, Chhattarpur and others have unauthorised construction of up to 30 per cent of the total area.

One can construct a structure up to a height of 12 metres and one main dwelling is allowed on one acre of land. “In addition to this, servant quarters of 30 sqmt each, per main dwelling units, is also allowed,” said a senior official.

The notification states that most of these farmhouses had construction beyond the permissible building limits and had been included in the categories of unauthorised development. DDA had to frame a policy for their regularisation, which it come up with now. The DDA had recently approved the policy to regularise farmhouses, following which this notification was issued after approval from the urban development ministry.