Roads set vertical limit for high-rises

The future of new high-rises in the country will now hinge on how wide the access road is and how far the fire station is.

Updated on: Mar 5, 2012, 02:14:35 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The future of new high-rises in the country will now hinge on how wide the access road is and how far the fire station is.

In a move that will have a bearing on the ever-expanding urban sprawl, the environment ministry has made the approval of disaster management authority a must for a building with more than four floors.

Wide roads and proximity to fire stations — a necessity for movement of rescue workers and equipment during a natural disaster or an accident — are now a must for multi-storey structures. "Only if the proposed buildings meet the conditions would they be considered for environment clearance," a ministry official said.

The ministry has also prescribed the minimum width for access roads for getting the environment clearance.

The aim is to meet challenges of disaster management and traffic congestion.

The norms, however, could end up restricting vertical growth where the road is not wide enough.

A building of up to 30 metres, or four storeys, will be allowed only if the access road is 15-18m wide. For a structure higher than 60m, the road has to be at least 30m wide.

For a 45m tall building, the fire station shouldn't be more than 10km away. For those above 60m, the distance is 2km.

A DLF spokesperson said they would abide by the new conditions. Sources in the sector said the condition could push up project costs.

The ministry's expert appraisal committee (EAC) came up with the stipulations while discussing real estate projects in Haryana and Kerala last year. It submitted a set of fresh norms that were recently accepted by the ministry.

The clearance from disaster management authority has to come at two levels — before the work begins and at the time of occupancy.

The decision is mandatory for the states as well as it has been issued under the Environment Protection Act.

Environment clearance —either from the state government or the Centre — is mandatory for big real estate projects. The nod for projects worth less that R50crore is given by states. The Centre clears ventures worth more than Rs 50 crore.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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