TN plans new guidelines to regulate high-rise buildings

C Shivakumar

Chennai:

In a bid to regulate high-rise buildings in the city, the government is planning to bring in new set of guidelines after builders violated the guidelines prescribed under the Second Master Plan, according to CMDA sources.

Sources told Express that high-rise buildings are evolving in the city, which lies in Seismic Zone III and is vulnerable to quakes, without following the guidelines prescribed under the Second Master Plan.

Sources said the height of the building, which was regulated one and a half times the width of the road during the First Master Plan, has been reviewed during the Second Master Plan. The guidelines linking height of the buildings to width of the road by planners was to boost infrastructure facilities to sustain high dense development. Currently, Chennai is also one of the high dense city in the world with a density of 247 persons per hectare.

Under the revised regulation framed during Second Master Plan, it was stipulated that a 12 metre wide road should have a 24 metre high building, similarly a 15 metre wide road should have a building of 30 metre height, a 18 metre wide road should have a building with a height of 60 metre and a road having a width of 60 metre can have a building height of more than 60 meters.

Interestingly, the height of building allowed in Chennai Metropolitan Area is higher than the guidelines prescribed under the Second Master Plan, sources said.

Meanwhile, CMDA is also working on plan to make it mandatory for the builder to get no objection certificate from the state disaster management authority as Chennai happens to be in the seismic Zone-III and vulnerable to quakes. Sources said this could cut down the risk of threat and control the development of high rise building.