Manuals for Preparation of Development Plans (DP), Town Planning Schemes (TPS) and Local Area Plans (LAP) and Recommendations for Improving the Planning Processes

The Gujarat Real Estate Regulatory Authority (GujRERA), established under RERA Act 2016, is responsible for facilitating, regulating, promoting a healthy, transparent, efficient, and competitive real estate sector. To achieve this, the authority is also empowered to make recommendations to the government and appropriate authorities on measures to encourage development and improve the ease of doing business in the sector. Hence, GujRERA has undertaken an effort to prepare manuals for Town Planning Schemes (TPS), Local Area Plans (LAP) and Development Plans (DP). The main purpose of preparing these manuals is four-fold: 

• To make the process of preparing DP, TPS and LAP evident, consistent and efficient.  
• To explain the process in simple and clear terms to young planners and professionals. 
• To provide clear stage-by-stage guidance to bring everyone on the same platform. 
• To integrate high quality urban spatial planning with the right statutory processes to encourage high quality, sustainable and livable developments.

To achieve these objectives, CRDF engaged a team of experienced urban planners, urban designer practitioners, and domain experts at CUPP for this project. The team has been engaged in the ongoing project to prepare manuals for DP, TPS and LAP, and has been providing recommendations to ease the process and improve the quality of plans.

The project required detailed understanding and assessment of the current planning processes and their outcomes and issues. A series of meetings have been held with senior town planners, senior officers in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), Chief Town Planner, developers, domain experts to receive their valuable inputs. These include insights for improving the process, ensuring high-quality urban environment, ensuring sustainable, healthy and resilient development, and preserving sensitive environmental features. The CUPP team has been working closely with the GujRERA team that has been actively coordinating the project with Gujarat government to receive their inputs before the publication.