Thane Municipal Corporation tweaks TDR rule to make homes affordable

THANE: Mumbai used it to decongest the island city, Hyderabad to built wider roads and Bangalore to facilitate big-ticket projects.
Now, Thane is using Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) to control soaring home rates by removing restrictions on the use of development rights generated on a land.
The Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) will remove the existing cap on loading of TDR on a plot, effectively opening up development potential of the land to an infinite limit.
The TMC is amending the crucial Appendix W of Development Control Rules (DCR) to remove the existing cap of 0.8 on TDR currently allowed on a plot in new Thane and 0.4 on land in old Thane. This simply means a developer or holder of TDR certificate will be able to use Floor Space Index (FSI) credit on a receiving plot without worrying about any restrictions on the maximum available development potential of his plot.
To balance out any excesses arising out of the changes, the corporation will change the rules to issue built-up area to a holder of development rights certificate (DRC) instead of FSI credit. This because built-up area of a plot is attached to the ready reckoner (RR) rates and thereby will not allow any possible speculation in TDR rates. This indexing of TDR will mean development rights will proportion out according to the average of rate of certificate generating plot and receiving plot.
Both the proposals to remove cap on TDR load-ability and indexing of TDR will be tabled before the general body (GB) for approval next week.
Once passed, they will allow developers to utilize full potential on the height and density of a project, which officials hope may make homes more affordable in Thane.
"As long it does not compromise on the safety and fire measures in a building or a new project, the additional FSI issued in form of built-up area will not be restricted from here on. The cap of 90 metre on the height of a building will ensure we have some sort of mechanism in place to check the height," said a senior official of the town planning department.
The TDR is issued to owners who surrender to the civic body their land hitherto reserved for playgrounds, markets, gardens, or road-widening.
Unlike Mumbai, Thane developers and plot owners get an equivalent amount of space as compensation in 11 planning zones depending on which sector they are being generated.
So, for example, TDR generated from a plot in old Thane sector 1, 2, and 3, is allowed to be unloaded in sectors 4 to 6 and 8 to 11. Here the FSI of the receiving plot is not allowed to exceed by more than 0.4 times of the total area.
In the new sectors of 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, the development rights are utilized in their respective planning zones only to the extent of 0.4 times area of the receiving plot.
According to the current rule, while granting this TDR no relaxation is given to a developer in open spaces, height, tenement density, parking spaces and other relevant provisions. These, officials said, will stay even in the new rules which have been formulated.
Senior officials of the TMC said the new changes will usher in over the next few years a uniformity in Thane's currently distorted skyline, make homes affordable as developer would be able to utilize full potential of a plot, control rates of TDR in the market, curb illegal construction currently carried out by indiscriminate use of FSI and, lastly, earn some much-needed revenue for the corporation currently in a weak financial condition.