Uttar Pradesh govt eases building codes to boost hotel industry

NEW DELHI: The Uttar Pradesh government has changed building regulations to facilitate the growth of the hotel industry in the state, in view of the large number of tourists visiting the state over the years.

The Uttar Pradesh government led by CM Yogi Adiyanath has amended the Construction and Development Rules, 2008, to facilitate opening of small hotels in the state.

Under a government regulation issued Friday, a building must have at least six rooms to be considered a hotel, and a minimum plot area will no longer be required to open hotels with six to 20 rooms — provided the hotel complies with local regulations. The required plot area for building large hotels has been halved.

Plot size requirements have been reduced

Previously, hotels with more than 20 rooms required a minimum plot area of 1,000 square metres, which has now been reduced to 500 square metres.

Meanwhile, the regulation prohibits the construction of hotels on residential plots in colonies that were designed based on the plan.

The changes mean that hotels with up to 20 rooms will now be able to be built on 9-metre-wide roads in residential areas, while larger hotels will require a 12-metre-wide road.

In all non-residential areas, hotels may only be built on roads with a width of 12 meters. In addition, the hotel owner is obliged to allocate a parking space in the amount of 1.5 equivalent parking spaces per 100 square meters of built-up area, in accordance with the standards for traffic areas.

A government regulation issued to amend the Construction and Village Development Regulations specifies the need to leave space in front and behind the building for the purposes of building a hotel.

Buildings 15 metres high will have to leave a space of five metres in front and three metres in the rear, with a space of three metres on either side. For buildings higher than 15 metres, the existing regulations on setbacks and ground cover will apply.
“No building height restrictions”

There will be no restrictions on building height within the permissible ground coverage and floor area ratio (FAR), but the building height will depend on the distance from protected monuments/cultural heritage sites, airport funnel zone and other statutory restrictions.

In case of large hotels built on an area of 4000 square meters or more, 20% of the FAR can be used for commercial and office purposes and 20% for service apartments. In these large hotels, 5% of the additional land area can be used for the entrance hall, which will not be included in the FAR calculation.

After the construction of the Rama Temple in Ayodhya and the Kashi Vishwanath corridor in Varanasi, the number of tourists visiting Uttar Pradesh has increased manifold.

With the completion of several projects like the Vindhya Corridor in Mirzapur and the Banke Bihari Corridor in Mathura, the state government is expecting a large number of tourists and precautionary measures have been taken.