Board index \ Accomodation

Availability and equitable distribution of land, its proper and timely development through the incorporation of the requisite infrastructure facilities and services, and its proper management are essential for facilitating a sustained growth of urban housing activity on a large scale in Cochin. The government and the public sector institutions will have to play an effective role in augmenting the supply of serviced land, counteracting speculation in land values, and ensuring rational land use.

Socialization of land, creation of land banks, reserving certain percentage of land for the poor and the low-income groups are some of the important measures to be adopted for making urban land available for housing and also to sustain the supply of serviced land at reasonable prices to the private builders, housing cooperatives and individuals. Suitable amendments to the Urban Land Ceiling Act are necessary in this regard.

With respect to the demand for Villas Cochin City and its suburbs is now witnessing a different type of developmental approach. The leading builders have now got much matured through wide experience and also by implementing cutting edge technologies. Instead of building high-rise apartment structures, where nearly 40 percent of the land area around the high-rise structure is set apart as open spaces for other purposes, when building luxury villas, more than 80 percent of the land area earmarked for the construction of the villa is utilized for constructing the building.

The government has now developed a faster single window clearance system to speed up the various procedures involved for commencing work on a building project. The sanction for a luxury villa in Cochin is now the prerogative of the local body, if such a project is located far away from the city. Through democratic decentralization process, the local bodies have been given additional powers to manage the affairs of landed properties falling under their jurisdiction