The short answer: five neighbours in the code can cap what a plot may become, and only one of them is visible from the site. Regulations 3.1.7 to 3.1.12 are the distance rules, and the airport one is the most consequential because it takes away height rather than land.

Key takeaways

  • Prisons: development regulated within 150 m of a Central Prison, 100 m of a District Prison, 50 m of a Sub Prison, and permitted only with Home Department committee consent.
  • Landfills: separation as specified under the Solid Waste Management Rules in force, or by the competent authority.
  • Airports: height capped by the AAI Colour Coded Zoning Map, published on the AAI website.
  • That map's figure is Above Mean Sea Level, so permitted height above ground is CCZM height minus site elevation.
  • A red area on that map, or any additional height, needs a prior AAI NOC. No map means an NOC is required.
  • Nothing above 150 m may be erected anywhere without Civil Aviation permission, even beyond 20 km from the airport.
  • Monuments: the Ancient Monuments Acts of 1958 (national) and 1960 (state) apply.
  • Natural lakes: no construction within 100 m of the high flood line in a Regional Plan area.

The airport rule, and the subtraction nobody expects

Chapter 3, Regulation 3.1.9, Restrictions in the Vicinity of Airport is the one that changes a project's economics rather than its footprint, and it works differently from every other rule in this chapter.

Height near an aerodrome is restricted to the permissible top elevation shown on the Colour Coded Zoning Maps (CCZM) prepared by the Airport Authority of India and published on its website. Any height beyond that needs a prior NOC from AAI, and any site shown in red on the map needs a prior NOC regardless. Where no such map exists for the area, an AAI no objection certificate is required outright.

Warning

Then comes the note that catches people, and the regulation states it as a formula.

The CCZM height is Above Mean Sea Level. The height a building may actually reach above the ground is:

Height of building (AGL) = CCZM height minus the site elevation.

So two plots under the same colour on the same map do not get the same building. A plot on ground 40 m above sea level loses 40 m of the allowance before anything is designed. In cities where terrain varies across a few kilometres, that is a difference of several floors between neighbouring sites that look identically placed on a map.

It also means the number a broker quotes from the map is not the number a buyer or lender should use. The site elevation has to be subtracted first, and it is a survey figure rather than a planning one.

Two explanations extend the rule beyond the map's edge.

Irrespective of distance, even beyond 20 km from the aerodrome reference point, no building, radio mast or similar installation exceeding 150 m in height may be erected without prior permission of the Civil Aviation Authorities. That is a state wide ceiling on tall structures, not a local one.

And no slaughter house, abattoir, butcher house or garbage depositing area that may encourage high flying birds such as eagles and hawks is permitted within 10 km of the aerodrome reference point. A bird strike provision, and one that constrains what may be sited near a project as much as what may be built on it.

The other four

Distance restrictions under Regulations 3.1.7 to 3.1.12

Banded by what the neighbour is

  1. Central PrisonDevelopment within 150 m of the perimeter wall is regulated, and may be permitted only with prior consent of a Home Department committee
  2. District PrisonSame, within 100 m
  3. Any Sub PrisonSame, within 50 m
  4. Land fill siteFor any residential development, the segregating distance specified under the Solid Waste Management Rules in force, or as specified by the competent authority
  5. Natural lake, Regional Plan areaNo construction within 100 m from the high flood line
  6. Natural lake, Development Plan areaAs provided in that plan, and in its absence the distance specified by the Irrigation Department
  7. Dams and foothill areasClear distances from the high flood line per the Water Resources Department circular of 8 March 2018 and amendments, with a condition prohibiting discharge of garbage or water

Source: Chapter 3, Regulations 3.1.7, 3.1.8 and 3.1.12, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025

Chapter 3, Regulation 3.1.10, Restrictions in the Vicinity of Ancient Monuments does not set a distance of its own. It adopts two statutes: the restrictions prescribed under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958 for protected monuments of national importance, and under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1960 for monuments of state importance.

That is worth knowing precisely, because it means the answer near a monument is not in the UDCPR. It is in the Act and the notification for that monument, and it is a separate document to obtain. The related but different question of what a heritage listing does to a property sits in Chapter 14 and is not the same restriction.

Chapter 3, Regulation 3.1.11, Restriction under the Works of Defense Act, 1903 is the one that gives something back. Restrictions under the Works of Defence Act, 1903 apply, and no development may contravene the notification. But whether or not the affected area is marked on the Development or Regional Plan, the area under the restrictive zone may be treated as marginal distance when building on the contiguous unaffected land. And the FSI, and the receiving potential, of the land in that zone may be used on the remaining contiguous unaffected land of the same owner.

Tip

That last provision is the pattern to look for whenever a restriction takes land out of use in this code.

Restricted land usually keeps its development rights, and the rights move rather than disappear. The same logic runs through restricted zones and where the FSI goes and through the green belt and river protection belt.

So "part of the site is restricted" is not by itself a statement about how much can be built. The right question is whether the FSI of the restricted part has been carried to the buildable part, and whether it has been carried once or counted twice.

Why these are hard to check from a brochure

Four of the five are invisible from a site visit. A CCZM colour, a landfill separation distance under the Solid Waste Management Rules, a monument notification and a lake's high flood line are all documents held elsewhere. Only a prison wall announces itself.

The site rules that stop a plot being buildable at all are a separate and longer list. The five here are different in kind: they do not usually make a site unbuildable, they make it buildable to less than it looks. That distinction is why they are missed. A plot with clean title in a good location can quietly be a five storey plot rather than a twenty storey one because of a number on a map published by an aviation authority.

What the register shows

MahaRERA does not publish CCZM heights, monument notifications or lake distances. But it publishes the two facts that let a buyer test the question themselves, free.

Every registration files the buildings and the floors proposed and sanctioned on each, and about two thirds of registrations carry usable filed coordinates. Height is not filed, but floor count is a workable proxy, and a project near an airport whose towers stop at a floor count well below what its neighbours reached is usually telling you something about the map rather than about the developer's ambition.

Where coordinates are absent, and they are missing or unusable on roughly a third of the corpus, that check cannot be run. That is a limitation to state rather than work around: a project with no filed coordinate cannot be placed against any of these distances from public data alone.

Where the filings come in

The CCZM, the monument notification, the landfill rules and the Irrigation Department's distances are all held outside the RERA register.

The register gives the project's own account of itself, free at reragenie.com: the filed land area, the buildings with their proposed and sanctioned floors, the filed coordinates where present, the promoter's extension history with the reasons given, the certifying professionals, and any complaints or litigation with case numbers.

ReraGenie's buyer report, Rs 499, reads one project's full filing and the documents behind it, compares the project with others within 2 km where a coordinate is filed, and includes a project watch for 90 days.

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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