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.

The developer will also have to reserve five per cent of the land for dwellings for the socially and economically weaker sections, in the residential townships which could come up on any zone — agricultural, industrial, residential or commercial. But the developer will have to obtain the necessary clearance from the authorities concerned, for this.

The developer will have to provide cycle tracks along the internal roads of residential townships, plant minimum 200 trees per hectare, and make provisions for harvesting and recharging of rain water and solar power-operated street lights, besides the transit space and facility for segregation of bio-degradable and re-cyclable solid waste.

The government has also set up two separate committees of “prescribed officers” under the township regulations. If such townships are set up under the jurisdiction of municipal corporations or urban development authorities, the prescribed officers will be the municipal commissioners, chief executive authority or senior town planners of the authority.

For the municipality areas, the collector and chairman of the district urban development agency, chief officer, and the town planner for the district concerned will be the prescribed officers.