Chandigarh’s no to increasing height of village buildings to 45 ft

Tribune News Service

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Chandigarh, August 28

The UT Administration has turned down the proposal of the Municipal Corporation (MC) to increase the height for houses in villages up to 45 feet, in view of the restrictions outlined in the rural bylaws. This specification is part of the Action Taken Report to be presented in the UT Administrator’s Advisory Council meeting scheduled for September 30.

During a meeting of the Advisory Council held on August 18 last year, Anup Gupta, then Mayor, stated that in villages, the height of houses should be fixed up to 45 feet because at present everyone is building houses according to their own requirement. This should be done keeping in view structural stability, he added.

In the action taken report, the Estate Office has emphasised that the construction of buildings in village areas, now incorporated within the Municipal Corporation limits, is governed by the “Chandigarh Rural Inhabitation (Area within Red Line of revenue estates, Abadi Areas) Construction and Reconstruction Building Bylaws of Villages (both within and outside Municipal Limits) falling in Union Territory of Chandigarh, 2017”. This legislation falls under the purview of the Municipal Corporation.

During a meeting held on October 29, 2020, the MC General House had considered and approved the agenda regarding proposed amendment to the above-mentioned bylaws with the change in height up to 45 feet. Further, it was approved that the proposal be sent to the Chief Architect, Department of Urban Planning, for a final approval and further consideration by the UT Administration for proposed amendments to the building bylaws.

Thereafter, the matter was referred to the Urban Planning Department, vide letter dated November 26, 2020, and the proposal to increase the height was not approval by the Chief Architect, UT.

The Department of Urban Planning reviewed the matter and has not proposed to increase the height to 45 feet in view of the restrictions on increasing the height under the Rural Bylaws as the internal roads are too narrow and in case of any incident or natural calamity, evacuation of humans will not be difficult. The Chandigarh Master Plan-2031 has also restricted mixed land use, high density, unregulated development in such areas in terms of its building height and volume.