The government has approved the draft plan to construct houses and other buildings at a distance of 2 meter from roads with width less than 6 meter. For this, the Kerala Municipality Building Rules 1999 and Kerala Panchayat Building Rules 2011 will be amended.
The government will allow small violations in guidelines after the approval for construction is obtained. The rules will be modified so as to authorise the government to receive appeals. This would allow government to allow for small violations that occur during constructions.
Earlier officials were reluctant to issue building number for constructions that violate the guidelines. To resolve this, around 15 percent of violations and in certain cases up to 10 percent would be allowed as per the new proposal. This is included in the amendment so as to avoid Anthoor model incidents, where an expat had committed suicide over the non-issue of licence to his newly built convention centre finding violations of guidelines in construction.
The new amendment will also allow applications to be processed online. Biogas plants would be made mandatory for houses with area above 300 sq.m. Other buildings will have to abide to the instructions by Pollution Control Board.
Post Occupancy Audit system will be introduced to identify any illegal addition to the building or any change in usage of the building after obtaining the building number for the construction. However, houses, religious buildings, industrial and hazardous constructions will be excluded from this.
All the public buildings should have toilet facilities for visitors.
At present, buildings can be constructed only at 3 m distance from roads. After the amendment is passed, buildings near roads with less than 6 m, need to have only 2 m front yard.