UP govts big decision: Height restrictions to be removed for Noida buildings, ground coverage limit to increase
With respect to height limits, earlier, industrial and institutional buildings could only be 10 to 24 meters tall. The new rules, based on Awas Vikas, remove most height limits except where rules about aviation safety or heritage apply, like near Noida airport. This will encourage taller buildings in the city.
Noida: The Uttar Pradesh government plans to remove limits on ground coverage and increase the floor area ratio (FAR) for industrial, residential, and commercial projects. This will allow buildings to grow taller and spread wider. Another big change is removing height limits. This will increase taller buildings in the city.
The government is preparing new common building rules for three industrial development authorities—Noida, Greater Noida, and YEIDA. The goal is to simplify construction rules, encourage more investments, and stop confusion caused by different regulations in each authority.
Height restrictions removed
With respect to height limits, earlier, industrial and institutional buildings could only be 10 to 24 meters tall. The new rules, based on Awas Vikas, remove most height limits except where rules about aviation safety or heritage apply, like near Noida airport. This will encourage taller buildings in the city.
The draft rules are based on a comparison of building laws from states like Telangana, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Odisha, as well as cities like Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong. These places mostly have few limits on building coverage and height. Instead, their FAR is often linked to the width of nearby roads.
Situation at present
Right now, industries can only build on 35-60% of their land, housing projects on 35-40%, and commercial and institutional projects on 30-60%. Awas Vikas rules, however, do not have these limits. The new rules want to follow the more relaxed Awas Vikas model by removing ground coverage limits completely. Builders will be allowed to use all the remaining land after leaving space for required setbacks, parking, and open areas.
A senior official said, "This will give builders more freedom to decide how to use their land, especially for big industrial zones and high-density housing.” Besides removing ground coverage limits, the new rules also propose increasing FAR, which is the ratio of total built-up area to the size of the land.
Currently, FAR is different for various uses: industries get 0.6 to 2, housing 2.75 to 3.5, institutions 0.8 to 2.75, and commercial projects 1.2 to 4. The draft plans to bring these closer to Awas Vikas standards and even increase them. Industries could have FAR between 2.5 and 3, group housing up to 3.5, institutions from 1.2 to 3, and commercial projects from 1.5 to 4.
Officials say a higher FAR will encourage building upwards, make projects easier to do, and support more people living or working in busy areas like Noida and Greater Noida. A state panel that checked these ideas also found that rules about setbacks, building height, parking, and landscaping could be made more flexible.
How will new rules benefit builders, buyers?
Setbacks, which are the distances between buildings and the edge of the land, have been a big challenge for builders. The new rules simplify this by fixing setbacks between 3 and 9 meters depending on the plot size. Right now, industrial areas need setbacks up to 16 meters, while Awas Vikas requires 3 to 15 meters. Officials said this change will allow builders to use more land while keeping safety, airflow, and fire safety in mind.
Parking rules are also being made simpler. Commercial projects now need one parking space for every 30 to 100 square meters of built-up area, institutional projects one for every 22 to 100 square meters, industries one for every 100 square meters, and group housing 1.25 spaces for every 100 square meters.
The new draft sets parking at one space per 300 square meters for industries, 1 to 1.5 spaces per housing unit, one per 85 to 200 square meters for institutions, and one per 50 to 500 square meters for commercial projects. These wider ranges will reduce extra land taken for parking and lower costs, officials said.
New rules will reduce landscaping needs
The draft also reduces landscaping needs. Current industrial rules say 25-50% of land must be green, but Awas Vikas asks for only 10-15%. The new draft proposes 5-10% green space but adds a rule to plant trees at the layout level to keep some greenery. The three industrial authorities in the National Capital Region, which work under the UP Industrial Area Development Act of 1976, have sent reports on the draft rules to Invest UP, which will meet on Thursday.
Officials said the goal is to unify nine industrial authorities—including Noida, Greater Noida, YEIDA, UP State Industrial Development Authority, Gorakhpur, Satharia, and UP Expressways Industrial Development Authority—that currently have different rules causing delays and confusion. A senior state planning official said, "Simpler and more investment-friendly rules will reduce disputes, speed up approvals, and make projects more practical.”
In July, the state had approved similar rules for urban development authorities under the UP Urban Planning and Development Act, 1973, and the UP Housing and Development Board under the UP Awas Evam Vikas Parishad Act, 1965.