E Delhi residents can now build on terraces without involving any other owners

New Delhi: The East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) has introduced a policy that will allow owners of top floors of residential buildings to obtain sanction for construction on terraces without having to involve owners of other floors, Mayor Shyam Sunder Aggarwal said on Wednesday.

This is part of the EDMC's policy on floor-wise sanction and regularisation of the existing floors in residential buildings, in both regular and unauthorised regularised colonies, for the benefit of the general public, he said.

Aggarwal said the step was taken as the EDMC received a number of complaints regarding blackmailing of owners of top floors of buildings by owners of lower floors or "demands for money" being made by the latter.

He said in regular and unauthorised regularised colonies, the right of ownership of the terrace remains with the resident of the top floor of a building.

Earlier, if the top floor owner wanted to construct a fresh floor, then he or she had to produce a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the owners of the lower floors to get the building plan sanctioned by the municipality. This led to malpractices, he added.

"We had received several complaints in this regard. Now as per the new policy, the owner of the top floor of a residential building can obtain the sanction for the building plan for construction on terrace within the permissible height of 15 metres. There will be no need for signature or NOC from owners of lower floors," Aggrawal said at a press conference.

However, the services of lower floor owners shall not be disturbed, he added.

According to the new policy, the mayor said, an applicant shall have to obtain a structural safety certificate for the existing building to ensure that it can take the additional load.

They can get it from the prescribed expert agencies like IIT Delhi and Roorkee, Jamia

Millia Islamia and RITES,

among others.

Aggrawal, however, said that the new policy will not be applicable to DDA societies. It will be implemented in regular colonies such as Preet Vihar and Vivek Vihar etc., and unauthorised regularised colonies like Geeta Colony and Krishna Nagar.