A Master plan or Development Plan or General Town Planning (GTP) Scheme is a general plan for the future development of a city / any settlement showing both, the existing and proposed streets or roads, open spaces, public buildings, residential, commercial areas etc. and shows various land use zones intended for development. It is a statutory document prepared under the provisions and procedures prescribed under the relevant Acts. The Zoning Regulations are also sanctioned along with the Master Plan. Zoning Regulations is the legal instrument for implementing the land use policy as proposed in the Master Plan. Zoning Regulations contain a set of guidelines with regard to the permissibility of the right use and the correct location of each zone duly prohibiting the conflicting uses in order to achieve the objective of the Master Plan for orderly development of a given settlement.
Zoning is a planning control tool for regulating the built environment and creating functional real estate markets. It does so by dividing land that comprises the statutory area of a ULB into different zones, permitting particular land use on specific sites to shape the layout of towns and cities and enable various types of development. It determines the location, size, and use of buildings and decides the density of city blocks
Need of the Zoning Regulations:
The Master Plans for various urban settlements along their vicinity areas have been prepared at different times for the past several years in the State. Zoning Regulations along with the Master Plans are also issued. It has been observed that some of the Land Use Zone Categories of the Master Plans have been shown differently in each of the Master Plans without following a uniform pattern. Due to this, there are different set of zoning regulations for different Master Plans creating complexity in understanding its applicability. This has led to difficulty among the general public, License Technical Personnel and also among the implementing agencies. Presently, the building permissions are issued through the Online Building Permission System (OBPS) on a single platform in the State. Therefore, it is difficult to customize all zoning regulations on a single platform. Hence, there is an immediate need to develop uniform zoning regulations for the entire State and this will help to avoid manual interpretation and intervention in the application of the zoning regulations.
The zoning regulations is the formal categorization of land-use Plan applicable to land within a Urban local body. It also sets the legal framework. The zoning regulation establishes permitted land uses and distinguishes between different land use types. Further, it ensures that incompatible land uses are not located adjacent to one another. The zoning regulations often also contains information relating to the need for a planning permit for a change of use or development proposal, subdivision of land, construction of new buildings, and other changes to the land.
Rationalization of Land Use Categories of master plans A systematic approach has been followed to rationalize the land uses of Master Plans which include:
a) Comprehensive assessment to understand the commonalities of zones of each Master Plan.
b) Review of existing land use zones of other metro cities Master /Development Plans.
c) Comparison with National Level URDPF guidelines.
d) Consultations with town planning experts and officials of line departments.
Applicability of the ZoningRegulations:
No development activity like layout, land pooling scheme, building activity or use of any land shall be permitted unless these are in conformity with the Master Plan land use, circulation network and the zoning of the uses and activities as given in this section and the building site requirements as given in these regulations.
These regulations however will not prohibit the continuance of existing uses of lands and buildings that have been lawfully established and have a valid development permission obtained from the competent authorities asrequired under the prevailing statutory provisions and these Zoning and Development Promotion regulations, provided that no expansion of the existing non- conforming use or activity shall be permissible provided such conformed use is dangerous to life.
All the layouts approved by the competent authorities as required under the prevailing statutory provisions or plots / layouts regularized by prior to these regulations and change of land use affected by government in the immediate preceding notified Master Plan from time to time shall continue to prevail irrespective of the land use zone proposed in the MasterPlan.