Most land due diligence starts with title. It should start earlier than that, with whether anything may lawfully be built on the ground at all, because UDCPR answers that in a single list and the list is longer than people expect.
Key takeaways
- Regulation 3.1.1 sets out fourteen grounds on which a site is not eligible for construction of a building.
- They include a gradient steeper than 1 in 5, a site incapable of being well drained, and a level below the prescribed datum.
- Water distances are absolute: 6.0 m from a minor water course and 15.0 m from a major one, measured from the edge of the water mark.
- A site entirely within 50.0 m of the mean high flood level of a wetland is not eligible.
- The zone between the river bank and the blue flood line is prohibited for construction, and between blue and red is restricted, with construction permitted 0.45 m above red flood line level.
- Regulation 3.1.13 says an applicant should not have to approach departments for NOCs, and requires the Authority to publish the restriction maps.
The fourteen grounds
Chapter 3, Regulation 3.1.1, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025 is the shortest route to finding out that a parcel is not what it looks like. A site is not eligible for construction:
- If the Authority considers it insanitary, incapable of being well drained, or dangerous to build on.
- If the entire site is within 6.0 m from the edge of the water mark of a minor water course such as a nallah or canal, or 15.0 m from a major water course such as a river, as shown on the Development Plan, Regional Plan, village or city survey map, or otherwise.
- If the site is hilly with a gradient of more than 1 in 5.
- If it is not drained properly or is incapable of being well drained.
- If the owner has not proposed appropriate measures to safeguard the construction from constantly getting damp, to the Authority's satisfaction.
- If the building is proposed on land filled with carcasses, excreta, filth or offensive matter, unless a certificate is obtained that it is safe from a health and sanitary point of view.
- If the use will, in the Authority's opinion, be a source of annoyance to the health and comfort of the neighbourhood.
- If the proposed occupancy does not conform to the land use in the Development or Regional Plan or the zoning regulations.
- If the level of the site is less than the prescribed datum level, depending on topography and drainage.
- If it does not derive access from an authorised street or means of access of adequate width.
- If it is within the river and blue flood line, the prohibitive zone, unless otherwise specified.
- If it is within a Coastal Regulation Zone boundary where CRZ regulations do not allow development.
- If it is not developable by virtue of restrictions imposed under any law or guideline of any Government department.
- If the entire site is within 50.0 m of the mean high flood level of a wetland, calculated under the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017.
Several of those are physical facts about the ground rather than entries in a register, which is what makes them dangerous for a buyer relying only on documents. A gradient, a drainage problem, a site level below datum and a filled-up plot are all conditions you can stand on and not notice.
There is a proviso worth knowing on the water course rule. Where a minor water course passes through low lying land without well defined banks, the Authority may permit the owner to canalise it within the same land, without changing the overall alignment or the position of the inlet and outlet, to a cross section the Authority determines. Marginal open space is then measured from the edge of the trained nallah.
Flood lines, which come in two colours
Chapter 3, Regulation 3.1.3, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025 works off the plan prepared by the Irrigation Department.
Banded by position relative to the lines
- River bank to blue flood lineProhibited zone for any construction, except parking, open vegetable market, garden, lawns, open space, cremation and burial ground, sewage treatment plant, water, gas and drainage pipelines, public toilets and like uses where feasible
- Blue to red flood lineRestrictive zone. Construction may be permitted at a height of 0.45 m above red flood line level.
- Redevelopment of existing authorised property inside the blue lineMay be permitted at a plinth height of 0.45 m above red flood line level
- Where no flood line is markedA tentative blue line is drawn from maximum observed flood records and approved by the Chief Engineer, Irrigation Department. 50.0 m landward of it is a No Construction Zone.
Source: Chapter 3, Regulation 3.1.3, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025
Two practical points sit inside that. Where the prohibited strip forms part of a larger plot in a Development Zone, the FSI of that part may be used on the remaining land, so the land is not simply lost. And the flood lines on a Development or Regional Plan stand modified as and when the Irrigation Department modifies them, so the version on an old plan is not authoritative.
The other distances
| What | The restriction |
|---|---|
| Railway boundary, Regulation 3.1.4 | Any construction within 30.0 m requires a No Objection Certificate from the Railway Authority |
| Low and medium voltage electric lines, Regulation 3.1.2 | 2.50 m vertical and 1.20 m horizontal clearance |
| High voltage lines up to 33,000 V | 3.70 m vertical and 2.00 m horizontal |
| Extra high voltage beyond 33,000 V | 3.70 m vertical and 2.00 m horizontal, plus 0.3 m for every additional 33,000 V or part |
| Environmental clearance, Regulation 3.1.5 | To be submitted as prescribed by the Ministry of Environment from time to time |
| Highways and classified roads, Regulation 3.1.6 | Subject to the State Highways Act 1965, the National Highways Act 1956 and the directives issued in that regard |
The electric line clearances are measured in a specific way that a site visit on a still day will understate: vertical clearance from maximum sag, and horizontal clearance from maximum deflection due to wind pressure. Those distances are also not the original ones. Table No.3 in Chapter 3, Regulation 3.1.2, Distance of Site From Electric Lines* was substituted by Corrigendum and Addendum No.CR.121/21 dated 2 December 2021, so a clearance quoted from an older copy of the code is not necessarily the one in force.
Chapter 3, Regulation 3.1.6, Development Along Highways / Classified Roads* has been amended twice, and one of the changes decides whether the highway rules apply to your plot at all. A clause inserted by the same corrigendum provides that all classified roads passing through urban local bodies, meaning municipal corporations, municipal councils and nagar panchayats, shall be treated as city roads. A clarification followed under Order No.CR.236/18 (Part 2) dated 23 December 2021. The regulation separately requires a service road along State and National Highways on both sides, as specified in Chapter 3, Regulation 3.3.8, Access from the Highways / Classified Roads*, and that service road may be dropped only where it would have no continuity from junction to junction because of existing authorised development or construction.
This is why the row in the table above is worded so loosely. The same plot on the same classified road is governed one way inside a municipal limit and another way outside it, and no single sentence in a comparison table can carry that.
Chapter 3, Regulation 3.2, Means of Access then adds the requirement that trips up landlocked parcels: every plot shall have means of access, and where a plot does not abut a public street it must have access from spaces directly connected to the street by a hard surface approach, at 6.0 m wide for up to 75.0 m of length, or 9.0 m for up to 150.0 m, in non-congested areas, and not less than 4.5 m in congested areas.
The provision nobody quotes
Chapter 3, Regulation 3.1.13, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025 is the one worth knowing before a permission process begins.
Every authority imposing restrictions under its own legislation shall make available to the Planning Authority full details of those restrictions, including graded restrictions where they exist, along with the relevant map. Then the sentence: in the interest of increasing ease of doing business, no individual applicant should be required to approach the concerned departments for NOC.
The duty does not disappear, it moves. It remains the applicant's duty to ensure the restrictions notified are followed scrupulously, and the Planning Authority must make a reference to the concerned authorities and ensure compliance while sanctioning the permission. The Authority must also publish that information on its notice board or website, and update it as the department updates it.
Names and numbers in this story are illustrative. When Priya and Arjun's shortlist included a plotted development near a nallah, what settled the question was not a departmental visit. It was the restriction map the Planning Authority is required to publish under Regulation 3.1.13, read alongside the Development Plan.
If a seller says a particular NOC is your problem to obtain, this regulation is worth reading first. The restrictions themselves still bind you. Collecting them one department at a time is what the code says should not be necessary.
What to check on any parcel
- Walk the ground for the physical disqualifications: gradient, drainage, site level, and any sign of filled land.
- Measure to the nearest water mark, 6.0 m for a nallah or canal and 15.0 m for a river, and check the survey map as well as the Development Plan.
- Ask the Planning Authority for the published restriction maps under Regulation 3.1.13 rather than chasing departments.
- Check the flood lines with the Irrigation Department's current plan, because the version on an older Development Plan may have been superseded.
- Confirm the access width and length against the 6.0 m and 9.0 m thresholds if the plot does not front a public road.
Where the filings come in
The register cannot tell you whether a site is buildable, and no register can: that is settled on the ground and in the Development Plan. What it can tell you is what has actually been registered nearby, which is a useful sanity check on any claim about what a location permits.
Every MahaRERA filing at reragenie.com is free to read and carries the filed land area, the buildings and floors, the promoter's extension history with the stated reasons, and any complaints or litigation with case numbers.
ReraGenie's area consolidated report, Rs 2,999 for the first project and Rs 1,999 per additional one, reads a whole micro-market's filings together, and the buyer report at Rs 499 does the same for a single project including the documents behind it.
For what a city chapter can add on top of all this, see which rulebook governs your plot.
Source: Unified Development Control and Promotion Regulations for Maharashtra, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025. Sanctioned under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966.
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