Parking space mandatory for all housing buildings: GDA

With a view to making internal roads free for vehicles, Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) has made parking spaces mandatory for even the smallest group housing buildings. The builders will have to provide one car parking space for each housing unit in a building with a plot area of over 100 sqm. ‘Residents use roads for parking which is not safe and pose problems for the movement of ambulances, police patrolling vehicles and fire tenders. We have made parking space mandatory for even the smallest housing block,’ said Santosh Kumar Yadav, vice chairman of GDA. Earlier, parking space was not mandatory for small housing complexes with an area of 100 sqm to 2,000 sqm, and builders in the area hardly construct parking space in these buildings, forcing residents to use the road for parking. ‘Most of the residents in the city have cars, with the result that the internal roads of the colonies are packed with parked cars with almost no space for movement of even emergency vehicles,’ added Yadav.

The decision was taken in the 134th board meeting of GDA on Saturday in which over 60 amendments in the existing building by-laws were cleared. GDA also increased the height of such buildings from 12 meter to 15 meter which translates into adding one more floor on the third floor.

The authority also removed the cap on the area of basement. So far, the area of basement was 20 per cent of the constructed area of the building. In another major decision to increase parking space in big group housing societies, GDA has allowed parking under mandatory green space with a rider that a feasible design of water harvesting system is approved by GDA.