The land pooling policy is aimed at meeting the growing housing demand by providing close to 17 lakh dwelling units in 95 urbanised villages located in urban extension of the city.
Delhi Development Authority (DDA) on Tuesday gave approval to additional development control (ADC) norms for areas notified under its ambitious land pooling policy to make it more attractive for landowners and private developers. New norms like vertical mixing, plotted development has now been allowed.
What is land pooling?
The land pooling policy means that government agencies consolidates parcels of land and designs or develops it with infrastructures like roads, schools, hospitals, community centres and sports facilities on part of the land and then returns a portion to the original owners who can later sell it or execute housing projects with the help of private builders.
How has DDA designed land pooling for Delhi?
While the land pooling policy generally involves acquiring of land for development, the DDA has said that the authority will be acting as a facilitator, regulator and planner for execution of the policy instead of acquiring, developing and disposing a property. The decision was taken to do away with the cumbersome process of land acquisition by making landowners equal partners in the development process. Also, land acquiring often leads to confrontation between government agencies and locals.
How much land has been acquired till date?
The land-owning agency has got hundreds of land owners agreeing to pool over 6,500 hectares of land under the policy so far, plans to develop 15 priority sectors in three planning zones N, P-II and L — near Rohini, Alipur and Bakkarwala, respectively. As per the policy, 60 per cent of the land would be used by owners or developer entity for development of residential, commercial, public and semi-public facilities. The remaining 40 per cent would be used by DDA or the service-providing agencies for development for roads, hospitals and other infrastructure. The land pooling policy is aimed at meeting the growing housing demand by providing close to 17 lakh dwelling units in 95 urbanised villages located in urban extension of the city.
What are additional development control (ADC) norms and how will it impact people’s lives?
DDA has notified additional development control norms for land pooling policy which are a set of guidelines that has to be followed while developing the area. The land owning agency has given several relaxations in it like plotted development has now been allowed. “Till now, group housing complexes were allowed in land pooling areas for residential development but now we have allowed even plot system,” said a senior DDA official.
However, the cluster’s minimum size should be 5,000 square metres. It has also allowed new concepts of public plazas and active frontage to bring more openness in the sector layouts. It has also allowed high intensity mixed use development which means both commercial and residential would be allowed in the same unit.
As per the exiting the existing land pooling policy, notified in 2018, only high-rise housing complexes were allowed in residential areas. But the new norms allow commercial, office and other mixed-use for major transportation corridors such as along Metro lines, Urban Extension Road-II.
It has also allowed vertical mixing which means high rise can be built and in the same building there can be commercial spaces. Transferable development rights for the first time in Delhi which means people who have lands in different sectors can transfer to each other. Other norms that have been approved are priority for walkability and enhanced open spaces in sectors, new concepts of Public Plazas and active frontage to bring more openness in the sector layouts.
