GDA proposes allowing commercial activities in city’s residential areas

Source: hindustantimes.com

The Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) is preparing a proposal for allowing a limited commercial activities on one floor of multi-storey residential buildings. The officials said zoning regulations of the Bareilly Development Authority provides such a feature and the state officials have asked the GDA to prepare a proposal along the same lines.

According to GDA officials, the issue of burgeoning commercial activities in residential areas came up for discussion during a high-level meeting in Lucknow and the GDA was asked to submit a proposal. According to authority’s town planning department officials, a number of such instances were recently regularised in Bareilly.

“The authority in Bareilly has zoning regulations that allow regularisation of ground floor of a residential building for commercial activity, provided the plots are located on a road with a width of 24 metres or more, and also have adequate parking space available as per by-laws. Those applying for regularisation will have to submit an impact fee which is 25% of the land cost based on prevailing circle rates,” Asheesh Shivpuri, GDA’s chief architect & town planner, said.

The zoning regulations define what activities can be taken up over a particular land use, as defined under the Master Plan.

“The regulation is that only 33% of the floor area ratio, available to the building, can be made available for conversion to commercial. The commercial activity can be allowed only on the ground floor. Further, the ownership of the land where parking will be allowed should be in name of the property owner when he applies for regularisation,” Shivpuri said.

GDA vice-chairperson Kanchan Verma said the authority will add several other conditions to the existing zoning regulations.

“Apart from the requirement of the location of the plot on road with a width of 24 metres or above and availability of parking space, our proposal will also add a condition that GDA’s schemes where commercial plots or properties are still available will not be included for the intended regularisation. Regularisation will affect our unsold commercial properties. Further, we are also adding a condition that no manufacturing will be allowed on such properties. This is to avoid pollution in residential areas,” Verma said.

The officials said the proposal is being prepared and will be sent to the state government for approval.

“The state officials may announce a policy for regularisation or can also announce a one-time scheme for regularisation. The last time the scheme was announced for a month was in 2001, for land use conversion from residential to commercial. This will also help the authority to get revenue and the non-complying instances left out can be easily dealt with during enforcement drives,” Verma said.

The federation of association of apartment owners (Indirapuram) last year had filed a petition at the Allahabad high court and raised the issue of traffic congestion in Indirapuram due to rampant commercial activities in residential areas.

“The traffic police took some steps on the directions of the court, but the problem persists as shops, restaurants, showrooms etc have come up on residential plots. If the GDA is trying to streamline zoning, it will be a welcome step,” Alok Kumar, president, federation of association of apartment owners, said.