Having put on the backburner its much-touted Integrated Township Policy, the Gujarat government on Thursday announced “Regulations for Residential Townships – 2009”, for what it termed as the planned and balanced development of the housing sector in and around all major cities and towns in the state.

The regulations for residential townships come into force from December 1— the day the State Urban Development and Urban Housing Department issued the order, a senior official told The Indian Express this evening.

Under the regulations, all private developers will have to purchase at least 40 hectares of land to build a residential township in the areas falling under the urban development authorities of Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Gandhinagar, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar. In the case of other towns and relevant urban authorities, the developers will need to purchase minimum 20 hectares of land for such townships.

The developer will have to create the necessary public infrastructure and community utilities in the township and maintain it for the first seven years.

On expiry of the maintenance period, he will need to transfer the public purpose infrastructure to the competent authority. The developer will also have to execute a bank guarantee equivalent to 2 per cent of the total cost incurred on the infrastructure at the time of issuing the building use permission for the township he may develop.

The regulations state that the developer will be permitted to construct a building at the maximum height of 70 metres (or 21 floors) on payment of 7 per cent of the jantri rates. The maximum use of Floor Space Index has been fixed at 1.5. Besides the permissible 1.0 FSI, the additional 0.5 FSI will be allowed on the payment of charges based on jantri rates.

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