Tamil Nadu Housing Reforms: Digital Approvals, Flat Redevelopment and Loan Relief

Tamil Nadu Housing and Urban Development Minister B Rajkumar has announced a series of housing and urban development reforms aimed at speeding up approvals, digitising processes, redeveloping ageing housing projects and reducing the financial burden on certain home-loan borrowers.

The measures, announced in the state Assembly, include online processing of land-use change applications, expanded self-certification and third-party certification for buildings, higher approval limits for local bodies and interest relief for borrowers of primary cooperative housing societies.

The Directorate of Town and Country Planning will digitise the complete land-use change application process. Self-certification will be expanded to residential buildings of up to 5,000 sq ft and introduced for small commercial buildings of up to 1,500 sq ft.

Third-party certification will also be permitted for commercial buildings up to 3,230 sq ft, residential buildings up to 8,070 sq ft and industrial structures up to 26,900 sq ft in approved SIDCO, SIPCOT and ELCOT layouts.

Approval limits for residential projects will be increased to 16,140 sq ft for corporations and municipalities and 12,912 sq ft for town and village panchayats. Commercial approval limits for all local bodies will rise to 5,380 sq ft.

The government will also streamline the reclassification of wet agricultural land in non-planned areas through multi-departmental clearances.

LARGE-SCALE HOUSING REDEVELOPMENT

The Tamil Nadu Urban Habitat Development Board plans to reconstruct 12,648 dilapidated flats across 20 project areas at an estimated cost of Rs 2,882.62 crore. The first phase will involve demolishing 9,918 unsafe units.

Another Rs 96.63 crore has been earmarked to renovate 41,664 old flats, while Rs 355 crore will be spent on improving civic infrastructure across 208 housing sites.

The board will also introduce an integrated Smart Habitat Management Platform at a cost of Rs 75 lakh to improve management of housing projects.

LOAN RELIEF FOR COOPERATIVE HOUSING BORROWERS

The government has also announced an interest waiver scheme for borrowers of primary cooperative housing societies who have defaulted on repayments.

Low Income Group and Middle Income Group borrowers will receive an additional one percentage point interest waiver under the proposed measures.

The package is aimed at making building approvals faster, reducing administrative delays, improving ageing housing infrastructure and providing financial relief to eligible housing-loan borrowers across Tamil Nadu.