Norms for selling TDR relaxed

Norms for selling TDR relaxed

The Hindu

Development Rights Certificate can be exchanged across zones

# BMP will relax setback rules, FAR for property developed on TDR
# Property owners can sell DRC to those in other zones

Bangalore: Does your building have deviations? Then worry not for Transferable Development Rights (TDR) is here to your rescue.

Under the new rules framed by Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP), property owners can have building deviations regularised by buying a Development Rights Certificate (DRC) from anyone whose property is being acquired for road widening.

The State Government on September 25 approved modifications to the Karnataka Municipal Corporation (KMC) Act regarding TDR. The BMP has mooted the idea of TDR to acquire property in prime areas for road widening. In the first phase of this road-widening project, 12 roads, including Nrupathunga Road, Avenue Road and Seshadri Road, have been identified.

Owners whose property falls along the road alignment developed by BMP will have to give up some or all of the land as demanded by the BMP. In return, they will be given a DRC, which will state the floor area ratio (FAR) in square metres that they are entitled to use elsewhere.

One of the major modifications approved by the State Government is that if a property in C zone has been acquired, then the owner with the help of DRC can build more on his or her property in "A" or "B" zone or sell it to someone who can use the DRC for his buildings in the two zones.

The city has been divided into A, B and C zones based on the value of the property in the area. For example, property in Palace Road would be under "A" zone while property in Bellary Road would be under "C" zone. Earlier, the rules had restricted owners of DRCs in B or C zone from selling it to property owners in "A" zone.

Simply put now, the DRC obtained after surrendering the property can be used anywhere within the ambit of the local planning authority.

The earlier rules said that DRC could be given to property owners if the road next to which it was located was 12 metres wide. But the modified rules said that DRCs could be now given if the road width was nine metres wide.

FAR norms

If you have bought a DRC and plan to use it for increasing your floor area ratio (FAR), it cannot exceed 0.6 times the FAR allotted to you initially. But the modified rules say that minor deviations up to 10 per cent above the permissible FAR will be "tolerated".

If a part of property has been acquired and the owner has fallen short of the FAR allotted, then the BMP will relax its setback rules by 50 per cent. The modified rules do not insist on incremental parking if you are using the DRC to build more floors in your own building. But if the DRC has been sold, that property cannot cut down on it parking space.

BMP Commissioner K. Jairaj told The Hindu on Wednesday that with so many changes approved by the State Government to the TDR scheme, infrastructure development in the city would receive a major thrust by November. He hoped that citizens would take to the TDR scheme more easily. To date, only 20 people had opted for the scheme.