URDPFI[2015] AND UDPFI[1996]GUIDELINE COMPARISON

ASSIGNMENT -2

S.SRIVIDHYA
116011001565
 A COMPARATIVE REVIEW OF UDPFI GUIDELINES 1996 AND URDPFI
GUIDELINES 2015
INTRODUCTION
 Land use plan is an essential part of town planning practice in India. Every city in their
comprehensive/development plans provides a land use plan classifying the parcels of land
based on the categorization of function as defined in the master plan document.
 In India mostly this classification is based on the predominant function for which the
land is used like manufacturing. Usually, this classification is in two level or three levels
defined as use category, use zone and use premise.

 Following permissive zoning, this classification system usually allowed for permissibility of
certain premises of related activities within the zone,
for example convenience shopping area or school in a residential zone,
but usually these activities so far were not mixed at the premise level.

 The predominant use of land continued to be residential.

 Over the last few years, there has been a demand for increased permissibility at the
premise level.
 This can be seen in the demand for retail shops, nursing homes, daycare centers etc. in
the residential plots.
 It can also be seen in the way the discussion on transit oriented development is being
conceptualized.
 It advocates premises without setbacks and high floor area ration which will contain mix
of office, commercial and residential buildings with the same premise in such a manner
that it might be difficult to define the predominant function of such lands.
COMPARISON,
 comparison of the 1996 and 2015 guidelines,
section three, four and five highlights the major changes proposed and
main issues in classification system, use category and use zones.
 In 1996, based on the recommendations of the national seminar on Master Plan
Approach: its efficacy and alternatives, a research study was awarded by the Ministry
of Urban Affairs and employment to the Centre for Research Documentation and
Training (CRDT) of the Institute of Town Planners India for the preparation of Urban
Development Plan Formulation and Implementation guidelines.
 One of the aspects amongst the four terms of reference for this study was efficient
implementation mechanism and innovative techniques for promotion of planned
spatio-economic development of urban areas. (UDPFI, 1996).
 As part of this the report included Development Promotion Regulations as part of the
annexures. This included land use classification system.

 Almost two decades later the Ministry of Urban Development decided to revise these
guidelines through a private consultant.
 Recently these guidelines have been placed on the website of the Ministry of Urban
Development as Urban and Regional Plans Formulation and Implementation Guidelines
(URDPFI).

 Amongst the sixteen points in the terms of reference given in the Request for
Proposal document of the revision one was to suggest the new set of Norms and
Standards, Zoning Regulations including integrated development of peri-urban areas
which are easily comprehensible and user friendly (URDPFI, 2015).
PURPOSE
 The fundamental purpose and principles of classification have not really been explicitly
articulated in any of the debates and discussions on classification.
 UDPFI guidelines act as a reference for many of the small and medium towns and
is completely silent on the issues of principles guiding such classification thereby
making it less likely for it to be followed.

 In Europe interest in land use classification has its basis in classifying agricultural land
with a purpose to recover prices after the World War and also for soil conservation.
So far, activities were considered to be the major organizing principles of
classification e.g. shopping, parking etc.
 However, fundamental questions on land use and land use classification began to be
asked more seriously in 1950s because of wave of suburbanization in the US.
 The complexity of land use classification was highlighted in the article by
Guttenberg (1959) where he introduced the concept of multiple land use
classification system.

 According to him land use can refer to buildings or other improvements on the land
e.g. developed or undeveloped, to the occupants or users of the land for, e.g. public
facilities or community centre, to the major function of the occupancy of the land
manufacturing or recreational, or to the kind of activities on the land office activity or
shopping activity.
 To develop the system, he introduced five aspects; development type, building
type, activity, function and effect.
 Effect was in terms of scale of activity, visual effect, nuisance effect in terms
of noise, traffic or other pollution.
CLASSIFICATION OF USE CATEGORIES
 Public and Semi Public as a category primarily states the nature of activity and ownership
as in semi-public under which many functions like health, education, security etc. are
grouped.
 In agricultural and water bodies, water bodies are not a function but a physical feature
on which agriculture as an activity would usually be dependent.
 Special area simply is an area requiring development regulations different from rest of
the city and is not a functional category.
 The recent guidelines further complicate this categorization by introducing two new
categories and change the nomenclature of two categories.
 The two new categories are Mixed Use and Protective and Undevelopable Use Zone.

 Mix use is not a functional category. Introduction of this category is possibly in response
to the issue discussed earlier of demand for increased permissibility at premise level.
 Protective and Undevelopable as a category is based on the criteria of land suitability
and resource conservation and not on function.
 This seems to be primarily in response to the increasing environmental concerns.
 The point however, is that the criteria of this classification is not uniform and exclusive
and to address these concerns other aspects of land use as mentioned in section 2 need
to be brought in.
 The other change is the change in nomenclature from Agricultural and water bodies to
primary activity and from Manufacturing to Industry.
 Both the changes broaden the definition.
 Primary Activity might have been taken from the census classification of primary,
secondary and tertiary activity since it also includes mining and extractive industries.
 Change from manufacturing to industry might cause some confusion and would perhaps
need explanation and whether this will be as per the industrial classification of census or
some other classification. It could have also been done simply because M as a code now
was introduced for Mixed Use Zone.
 In the two guidelines, the use categories have changed from eight to ten (Table ). An
examination of the initial eight categories given in 1996 begins to reveal the complexity
of the classification particularly in the Indian context.
 Considering that the classification is primarily based on function, one can see that
categories number 4 - public and semi public, number 7- Agricultural and water bodies
and number 8 - special area are the odd ones as these are not functions.
BROAD SYSTEM OF LAND USE CLASSIFICATION
 In the Indian context, preparation of Delhi Master Plan with involvement of Ford
Foundation apparently brought similar classification system to India in 1957. Significant
detailing was added to this system in the revision of the plan in 2001.
 This system was based on three level classification of Use Category, Use Zone and Use
Premise.
 Permissible activity within the premise was provided and permissibility of each premise
with the use zone was given.
 The UDPFI guidelines 1996 drew heavily from the Delhi Master Plan; however, it
restricted it to two level classification of Use Category and Use Zones. It further
detailed out activities permitted, restricted and prohibited.
 This detailing out of activity was done surprisingly for each use category and not use
zone.
For example if the commercial use category had three use zones; retail, general
business district center and wholesale then the list of permitted activities did not
distinguish between these zones.
 It also did not explain the basis of difference between these zones.
 The principles governing the relationship between the use zones and activities also
remained open and unarticulated.
Land Use Classification System in Delhi Master Plan 2001 and UDPFI 1996 and URDPFI 2015
CLASSIFICATION OF USE ZONES
 Use categories are subdivided in use zones primarily based on the characteristics of the
activity and the impact that it will have for example retail commercial and wholesale.
 However, this hierarchy is usually difficult to follow and most of the land use plans
end up showing the broad use categories and only for some uses the plan goes up to
the level of use zones as identified.
 Many a time a use zone and a premise overlap.
 Following is discussion on selected use zones as identified in the guidelines to highlight
some of the issues.
RESIDENTIAL USE ZONES
 There is not a major change in this classification except that mixed residential zone is
removed and placed as a use zone in mixed use category. Unplanned/Informal Residential
Zone as a use zone is undefined in the guidelines and is also problematic since this is a
criterion based on type of development and not the use.
 If development type is to be the criteria for use zones, then all the housing types need
to be identified and group housing and plotted then can also not be clubbed together.

 Usually in a plan which is legally binding, and which plans for all kinds of people and
activities it would be rather difficult to show unplanned/informal housing.
COMMERCIAL USE ZONES
 In most of the land use plans in India, one hardly ever sees a sharp distinction between
retail shopping zone and general business and Commercial district Centre as separate use
zones. The reason being that it is difficult to classify such separate distinction particularly
when there is no difference in terms of activities permitted or facilities provided.
For example would Connaught Place in Delhi be considered a retail shopping zone or
commercial district center….While the characteristics of retail shopping zone and business
district are very different but in the land use plans these are usually shown as commercial.
 Many a times as in case of Delhi with its hierarchy of District Centre and Community
Centre these are often mixed. Again drawing from an example of Delhi, Nehru Place
planned as office cum retail space has emerged as a major wholesale hub for textile and
computers.
 Since the nature of space required for this kind of wholesale was very different from
other wholesale markets proposed in the city.
 The guidelines have also introduced two new use zones namely service sector and
Regulated/Informal/Weekly Market. These two as use zones are simply
incomprehensible. The later will usually be too small to be demarcated at city level.
MIXED USE ZONE
 In each period of technological change, the nature and purpose for which land is required
also requires a revisit. During the period of industrialization there was a need for certain
kind of spaces as well as protection from the impact of industrial activity.
 Similarly, the information and communication technology is also bringing in changes, which
require certain kind of spaces and protection from its impact. Issues of sustainability as
well as requirement of particularly the white collared worker in the IT sector, entry of
foreign retail brands is creating a demand for spaces which is different from that of an
industrial society
 Traditionally Indian cities organized in such manner where residential and commercial
activities on the same premise existed and maintained a work-home relationship. In
planning, this relationship was acknowledged through permissibility of shop cum flat or
residential-cum-work plot.
 As far as land use classification is concerned, Delhi continues to consider commercial
activity within the residential area as a permissibility condition in a predominant residential
use and not as a land use category as is being proposed in these guidelines.
 The mixed-use areas envisaged now in response to the technological change mentioned
above are basically those, which allow for multiple uses at premise level and at high floor
area ratio. It need not necessarily have a work-home relationship.
 It need not also be those activities, which are related to the predominant use of the area.
Classification of such zones in the city is now one of the major challenges to the function
as an organizing principle for classification.
 In these zones particularly the planned ones, the development regulations will operate very
differently from other areas.
 For example in Delhi, an influence zone of 500m on either side of metro corridor is
being envisaged as something very similar to this mix use. This is likely to cover
almost one fourth of Delhi, if not more.
 The proposed guidelines provide three use zones for this category and this is the only
category in which activities are defined for each use zone.
 However, the threshold to maintain the predominance of use shown is very similar to what
would be achieved in residential, industrial and commercial use zone since it is defining it in
terms of land area.
 The guidelines provide no clarity on the development regulations for mixed use unlike for
other use categories.

USE ZONES OTHER THAN RESIDENTIAL, COMMERCIAL & MIXED USE

 There are very minor changes proposed in the use zones for industry, public and semipublic
and transport and communication. A similar issue of overlapping can be seen in the initial
industrial classification of 1996, which is continued in 2015.
 The first two categories are based on the scale and type of industry whereas the third
one is based on the impact of the industry.
 In the public and semipublic, police station has been introduced as a separate use zone
whereas cremation and burial grounds though requiring very different locational
attributes has been clubbed with socio-cultural and religious.
 In agriculture, which is now named as primary activity, horticulture has been added as a
use zone clubbed with forest. In special area are use zones, are classified, and based on
very different criteria like visual appeal or historicity.
 Village settlements have been removed from this in 2015 for some reason. Protective and
undevelopable area is a category defining the development status.
CONCLUSION
The guidelines of 2015 continue to largely repeat the 1996 system and adds very
little in terms of simplicity and clarity.

It actually adds more categories and use zones. Implications of removing use
premise as a level of detail can only be judged through studying the practices of
different cities. Introduction of mix use as a category is a very weak attempt to
deal with the issues posed by the larger changes in the society.
The guidelines on land use classification need to address the fundamental
questions of the nature and extent of change in activities due to globalization and
technological changes otherwise it will have a very limited application in practice.

The classification system also needs to provide more relational understanding of

use of land with aspects like natural resources, land suitability, development type
and impact in a more comprehensive manner.

The distinction between zones classified based on the suitability of development

and between zones based on the classification of function should be clarified.
REFERENCES
Delhi Development Authority (1990) Master Plan for Delhi 2001, Ministry of Urban
Development, Delhi. Dickinson.G.C.and M.G.Shaw (1977) “What is ‘land use’?” in Area,
Vol.9, No.1 pp.38-42 Guttenberg A.Z. (1959) “Multidimensional Land Use Classification
System,” Journal of American Planners Association, Vol 25, p.143-150.

Town and Country Planning Organisation (1996) Urban Development Plan Formulation and
Implementation (UDPFI) Guidelines 1996, TCPO, Delhi.

Town and Country Planning Organisation (2015) Urban and Regional Development Plans
Formulation and Implementation (URDPFI) Guidelines 2015, TCPO, Delhi.

Guttenberg, A.Z (2002) “Multidimensional Land Use Classification and How it Evolved:
Reflections on Methodological Innovations in Planning,” Journal of Planning History,
Volume 1, No.4, p.311-324.
THANK YOU