Chennai Corporation is likely to get more powers in the building plan approval process, including permission for special buildings and larger layouts. The category of special buildings include any residential or commercial building with more than two floors or a residential building with more than six dwelling units or a commercial building exceeding a floor area of 300 square metre.
At present, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority has the powers to approve plan for special buildings. But developers claimed that approval for many of the projects for special buildings in various parts of the city have been delayed for more than six months by the CMDA.
On Tuesday, a committee constituted by the government and convened by Corporation Commissioner D. Karthikeyan kicked off the meeting to recommend simple procedures for building plan approval.
According to sources in Chennai Corporation, the decision to delegate the powers to issue approval for special buildings will be taken based on an assessment of the data on applications received by CMDA for such buildings.
Similarly, Chennai Corporation is expected to get powers to approve subdivision of plots in layouts measuring four hectare after a study by CMDA and clearance from the government.
The member secretary of CMDA has already delegated powers to the Corporation principal chief engineer to permit plans for institutional and industrial buildings in any area of land and not exceeding 15.25 m in height.
A few years ago, the CMDA member secretary had also delegated powers to zonal executive engineers of Chennai Corporation to permit residential buildings with six dwelling units or commercial buildings with 300 sq m area or buildings with stilt plus two floors or buildings with ground plus first floor.
Other local bodies
In other local bodies of the Chennai Metropolitan Area, the approval for sub division of land measuring 1,000 sq m into eight plots is issued by the commissioner/executive officer.
Industrial buildings in any area not exceeding 15.25 m in height are also approved by the commissioner/executive officer.
Powers were also delegated by the CMDA member secretary to municipal commissioner/executive officers to permit residential buildings with six dwelling units or commercial buildings with 300 sq m area or buildings with stilt plus two floors or buildings with ground plus first floor.
Currently, local bodies in areas other than Chennai Metropolitan Area have powers to approve four dwelling units with 4000 sq ft built up area or 2000 sq ft of commercial area.
