To make houses available on affordable prices to the lower and lower middle income families in the state, Punjab Housing and Urban Development Department on Sunday notified affordable colony policy.
The Policy has been formulated to encourage the promoters to opt for small size residential plotted and flatted development, so that affordable plots and houses could be made available to the weaker strata of the society, said the state Housing and Urban Development Minister Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria.
Sarkaria said that the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh led Punjab Government is committed to fulfill the housing needs of the residents of the state, especially the economically deprived section, so the Government has formulated the affordable colony policy.
Moreover, in wake of economic crisis due to COVID-19 pandemic, the need to provide affordable housing to the lower and lower middle income group families had become all the most important, he said.
“Notably, the affordable colony policy is applicable to all the areas developed or approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and to residential and mixed land use zones in master plans as well as up to an area of three kms around municipal limit situated outside master plan,” said the Minister.
Talking about various conditions laid for developing an affordable colony, the Minister said that minimum of five acres are required for plotted or mixed plotted colony, while for the purpose of developing group housing exclusively, two acres of area is required.
For areas under SAS Nagar Master Plan, minimum 25 acres and 10 acres and for New Chandigarh Master Plan minimum 100 acres and five acres are required respectively.
Taking into consideration the interests of those, who opt for residing in an affordable colony, Sarkaria said that the State Government has laid several conditions to be fulfilled by the promoter interested in setting up such a project.
The maximum plot size for construction of affordable houses has been capped at 150 square yards, while for economically weaker section, it will be 100 square yards.
“To cater the recreational needs of the residents, the developer will be required to make adequate provision of parks in the project and a community centre and commercial area shall be kept reserved to fulfill the social and daily needs of the residents. All these facilities have been provisioned in the project to provide modern state of the art living facilities to the residents,” said the Minister.
INCENTIVES OFFERED UNDER AFFORDABLE COLONY POLICY
Punjab Government has offered several incentives in the policy for the developers, who would volunteer to set up an affordable colony.
The developers will be free to sell the EWS units without restrictions of Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act-1995. In the policy, otherwise applicable to setting up of colonies, the developer is required to hand over the EWS houses or plots to the concerned Special Development Authority for further selling the same. While in case of colonies, normally, the permitted saleable area stands at 55 percent, developers of an affordable colony will get 60 percent of the effective site area for development.
In case, the colonizer wants to develop Group Housing, the maximum ground coverage will be 35 percent of effective site area and maximum FAR (floor area ratio) shall be 1:3 of the effective site area.
The developer shall be required to keep 10 percent of the total number of residential flats reserved for sale as EWS. No density norms shall be applicable to these colonies.
For effective implementation of the policy, the power of competent authority to grant licence of these colonies has also been conferred upon DTCP (Directorate of Town and Country Planning).