HOUSING

ASSIGNMENT

SUBMITTED BY
MULLAI SELVAN.K
B.ARCH V YEAR

HOUSING IN INDIA
Information on housing stock and its condition collected during each
census reveals condition of living of the people. According to Census
2001, 187 million hoses have been reported t be used residence or
residence-cum-other use by about 192 million households. Thus more
than one house holds has been reported from some of the houses. The
condition of nearly 94 million of these houses has been reported as
Good, nearly 83 million as Livable and 10 million as Dilapidated. This
large number of households living in Dilapidate. House surely needs
immediate attention.
CONDITIONS OF CENSUS HOUSE
Conditions

Number

187

100.0

Good

94

50.3

Livable

83

44.5

Disapidated

10

5.2

Total households

Source : Housing Tables, Census fo India 2001

About 38 million households have concrete roof on their house; nearly
63 million have tiled roof and another 53 million have Grass thatch, etc,
as the material for the roof. For wall, nearly 84 million households have
reported use of Burnt brick and about 62 million Mud / Unburnt brick.
Nearly 110 million households have mud flooring and about 51 million
cement flooring. Only about 14 million households have floor of mosaic
and floor of mosaic and floor tiles.
Houses have been classified as permanent, Semi permanent or
Temporary based on the type of material use in construction of wall and
roof. Nearly 99 million of the 187 million houses are of Permanent
category, 58 million semi-permanent and 35 million temporary. Nearly 22
million of the temporary houses have been reported as Serviceable while
the balance 13 million are Non serviceable depending on whether the
wall of house was mud, unburnt bricks or wood or grass thatch,
bamboo, etc., or plastic or polythene.
MATERIAL OF HOUSE
No. of households
Percentage
(In million)

Roof:
Total number of
households
Concrete
Tiles
Grass, thatch, bamboo,
wood, mud, etc.
Others

192

100.0

38
63

19.8
32.6

42

21.9

49

25.7

84
62

43.7
32.2

21

10.2

25

13.9

Wall :
Burn brick
Mud, unburnt brick
Grass, thatch, bamboo,
wood, etc.
Others
Floor :
Mosaic, Floor tiles
14
Cement
51
Mud
110
Others
17
Source : Housing Tables, Census of India 2001.
Current

7.3
26.5
57.1
9.1

Affordable Housing Programs:

The policies and byelaws specify the following for these housing
developments:
- Minimum plot area and width
- Minimum carpet area or floor area
- Minimum cost per square foot or per unit
- Minimum amount of subsidy for each unit
- Income criteria for various types of units
- Percentage of land or FAR to be reserved for these housing
developments
- Maximum density and maximum size of the housing development
- Amenities and facilities like water supply, sewage facilities etc. as
upgrading elements
The requirements and criteria are varied and differ from policy to policy
and state to state. There are no consistent eligibility criteria or
requirements for these housing developments. The minimum floor areas
and the minimum size of a unit vary from policy to policy.
Current Affordable Housing Programs Income Levels

The various income segments of the population are classified according to

their income levels as follows:
EWS (Economically Weaker Section) The maximum income or
income ceiling for the Economically Weaker Section category is Rs.5,000
per month
LIG (Lower Income Group) - The maximum income or income ceiling for
the Lower Income Group category is Rs.7,300 per month
MIG (Middle Income Group) - The maximum income or income ceiling
for the Middle Income Group category is Rs.14,500 per month
HIG (Higher Income Group) - The minimum income or income ceiling
for the Middle Income Group category is above Rs.14,500 per month
CURRENT DEVELOPMENT STANDARDS FOR EWS/LIG HOUSING
The minimum current development standards based on various municipal
byelaws, housing regulations, schemes and policies analyzed in Appendix
I are as follows. All the regulations, byelaws and policies do not include all
the criteria listed below. Only some criteria are included in each byelaw,
regulation or policy:
Location: less than 20 kilometers
Project Size: None specified
Dwelling Density: 250 units per hectare = 100 units per acre
Land Area: No Minimum specified
Total land area to be reserved for EWS/LIG units is recommended as
follows:
- a percentage of the total area for residential uses
- a percentage of the entire area for a township/development including
and excluding
roads
- a percentage of the total number of units proposed
- a percentage of the total FAR proposed
Composition: specifies that the units to be built for EWS units only or a
combination of EWS/LIG units; There are no specific requirements whether
the units should be one room or 1 BHK or 2 BHK units.
Plot Size: Minimum 20 square meters. No specific information is provided
whether the area specified is for carpet area, built up area, superbuilt up
area or saleable area
Frontage: Minimum 3 meters
Unit Size: Minimum 12.5 square meters. No specific information is
provided whether the area specified is for carpet area, built up area,
superbuilt up area or saleable area
Unit Width: Minimum 2.5 meters

Unit Type: No specific information regarding whether the units should be

one room, one bedroom or two bedroom units.
Height: Minimum 2.6 meters at the roof and 2 meters at the eaves
Internal Volume: 2,250 cubic feet = 63.7 cubic meters
Road Width: Minimum 7.5 meters
Room Sizes:
Single Habitable Room 12.5 square meters,
Two Rooms Main Habitable Room 9 square meters, Second Room 6.5
square meters.

Combined bathroom and WC 2.8 square meters

Bath 1.8 square meters,
WC 0.9 square meters
Sale Price:Rs 750/square feet or Rs. 7500/ square meter
Unit Sale Price: Rs.100,000 per unit
Density 100 units per acre

I.

NEIGHBORHOOD FACILITIES & INFRASTRUCTURE

Community facilities enhance the lives of residents in numerous ways. Parks provide green space
and room to move for people in crowded city neighborhoods. Libraries, museums, community
centers, and performance spaces open doors to knowledge and ideas, culture, and enjoyment.
Medical facilities encourage and safeguard health, and public transportation offers mobility and
access to other areas. Without these and other community facilities, life could be colorless and
difficult, especially for those who cant afford to travel or to pay high prices for services.
Most communities, even small rural ones, have at least one public park and some other
community facilities a library, a hospital or clinic, a small museum or historic site. Improving those
facilities can mean different things for different communities. For some, the issue may be that
adequate parks or facilities simply dont exist, and need to be created. For others, existing facilities
may be old, and speak only to the needs of a community that has long since changed. Still others
might find themselves with community facilities that are adequate in some ways, but that have
become rundown or dangerous, and need to be revitalized. A less obvious situation is one in which
community facilities are in good shape and seem to be adequate, but arent being used.
What all these circumstances have in common is that improvement will take some resources and
require some work. That, of course, raises the questions of where those resources will come from,
and who will do the work. It also raises questions of how much responsibility the community as a
whole will take, who will plan the building of new facilities or the restoration or renovation of existing
ones, and how to make sure that whatever is created or restored actually meets the needs and
desires of the community.
Improving community facilities, then, comes down to determining what the community needs and
wants, and working usually over the long term to provide those facilities that will enhance the
quality of life socially, intellectually, culturally, economically, politically, and psychologically for
everyone.

Community facilities come in a variety of forms, of which parks are only one. In general, a
community facility is a physical feature provided either by the municipality as a public service, or by
a private entity in the community for the benefit of community members . Depending on the source,
the use of the facility may be free, or may involve a charge for users.

PARKS
Parks can range in size from a few hundred square feet a bench, some flowers, and a 20 by
20 plot of grass on a busy corner to millions of acres in the Alaskan wilderness. They can serve
many purposes as well, often at the same time. They are the lungs of a city, offering green space and
fresh air to people who otherwise might seldom experience anything but concrete and exhaust
fumes. They can protect open land, extraordinary landscapes, and historic sites, while also
functioning as open-air classrooms and laboratories for school children and others. Some common
types:

Urban parks. Urban parks can provide formal plantings, grassy

lawns, benches, playgrounds, picnic areas, and/or sports fields (as in
Central Park in New York or Golden Gate Park in San Francisco) or an
experience of the landscape much as it was before the city existed (as in
Forest Park in Portland, Oregon.) Parks in large cities often have other
community facilities located within them or on their margins: Forest Park
in St. Louis, for instance, is home to a zoo; the citys art, science, and
history museums; a public golf course; and a theater, among other
attractions. They can vary in size from pocket parks tucked into courtyards
or the angles of buildings to the 4,100 connected acres of the main
property of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia.

Small-town parks. Many small towns include a central park area

often, in the Northeast, the former town common with benches, perhaps
a bandstand, and a flagpole: a simple open space for town celebrations
and gatherings that may include athletic fields as well.

County or regional parks. Depending on the setting, these may be

similar to urban parks, or may be more like state parks (see below) with
outdoor activities and miles of roadless land. They may contain particular
attractions a view, a beach, a gorge or simply feature a pleasant
landscape with little or no recent human intervention.

State parks. Most state parks highlight the natural environment.

They may stress nature in and of itself as a wilderness area, for
instance, or because of an outstanding feature, such as a waterfall or for
its recreational value, with the emphasis on a beach, cross-country ski
trail, or campground. Some are historical parks as well.
Historical parks exist to commemorate or dramatize a historic event,
place, person, or period. Sites of historical parks may be urban or rural;
may be tied to specific historic events (battlefields, for example) or figures
(buildings where historic figures were born, lived, or worked); may be
meant to demonstrate and illustrate the history of a particular place or

time (parks in New England mill towns dedicated to industrial history);

may take advantage of the aesthetic, architectural, and educational value
of a well-preserved or restored historic building; or may feature buildings
or other sites that are historic in themselves simply because of their age
and quality, and the history theyve seen. These parks may also be
dedicated to the history or heritage of a particular group Italian
immigrants, Native Americans that occupied the community in the past
or live there today. Historical parks may be local, state or national, or
may be administered by private non-profit organizations, foundations, or
trusts, depending upon who owns and has developed the historic site.

National parks and national monuments. National parks are usually

large in the thousands, or even millions of acres and exist to protect
natural areas of significance from development, and to preserve them
permanently as wilderness and/or for the enjoyment of the public.
National monuments, generally (but not always) smaller than national
parks, may serve the same purpose, or they may protect historic or
cultural sites.
It may seem that national, or even state parks dont belong in a section
about community facilities. In fact, these parks may be community
facilities for those who live near or in them (many large national or state
parks include towns on or within their borders.) Acadia National Park in
Maine, for example, has an active Friends of Acadia group that provides
volunteers to perform various tasks within the park (from maintaining
trails to guiding nature walks), and raises money to supplement the public
park budget. National and state parks, notoriously underfunded, are often
more at risk in some ways than local parks are. Great Smoky Mountains
National Park, for instance, is within a days drive of 60% of the population
of the United States, and overuse (it hosts nine million visitors a year) is a
serious threat to its ecology.
Other community facilities. While most parks are publicly funded,
other facilities may or may not be. Some, such as hospitals, might be
owned either publicly or privately. Others are almost always public, or
almost always private.

In the case of private or even some public facilities, it can be difficult to

decide when cost prevents something from being considered a community
facility. The term community facility implies a community asset thats
available to all, or most, residents. When the cost of using such an asset
makes it unavailable to a large portion of the population, is it still a
community facility?

The Public Theater in New York offers free productions in Central Park in
the summer, with tickets on a first-come, first-served basis. Its available
to anyone, regardless of income, whos willing to wait in line at the
appropriate time. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, the American Repertory
Theaters (ART) least expensive tickets are nearly $40.00, putting them
out of reach for most low-income residents (and many middle-income
residents as well.) The Public Theater is clearly a community facility: is
the ART one as well?
For the purposes of this section, well consider community facilities those
that provide services at no or low cost, so that they can be used by
virtually everyone in the community.

EWS CASE STUDY

A typical unit of EWS houses being constructed under affordable housing
project by Madhya Pradesh Housing and Infrastructure Development
Board in Bhopal (M.P.) India is considered as a prototype model. Details of
the plan are as under Building type:
Ground floor row housing.
1 BHK Units ~30.5 sqm.
Area of Openings ~6.5 sqm.
Shading deviceschajja projection 400 mm.
Family profile
Family of four:
Husband, wife & 2 Children.
Appliances in use
CFLs.

 1 Refrigerator.
1 TV.
Ceiling Fans 1 Evaporative Cooler.
Typical energy use Average Electricity Bill Rs. 280/Month (~100 kWh/
Month)
A cooking gas cylinder of 14.5 kg lasts one month.
Financial profile
Family Income ~Rs. 11,000/Month.
Monthly Rental ~Rs. 1500/Month.
Current Market Cost of the Apartment ~ Rs. 750,000.
Based on the architectural drawings Figures 3 and 4 and specifications,
the details of bill of quantities and embodied energy along with the
CO2 produced is calculated, represented in Figures 5 and 6 respectively.

REQUIREMENTS OF CLUSTER PLANNING FOR HOUSING -GUIDE

Cluster
Plots or dwelling units or housing grouped around an open space. Ideally
housing cluster
should not be very large. In ground and one storeyed structures not more
than 20 houses
should be grouped in a cluster. Clusters with more dwelling units will
create problems in identity, encroachments and of maintenance
Group Housing
Group or multi-storeyed housing for more than one dwelling unit, where
land is owned jointly as in case of co-operative societies or the public
agencies, such as local
housing boards and the construction is undertaken by one
agency/authority.
Group Open Space
Open space within a cluster is neither public open space nor private open
space. Each
dwelling unit around the cluster open space will have a share and right of
use in it. The responsibility for maintenance of the same will be

collectively shared by all the dwelling units around. This space will be
called as group open space.
Cluster Court Town House
A dwelling in a cluster plot having 100 percent or nearly 100 percent
ground coverage with
vertical expansion, generally limited to one floor only and meant for self
use, will be called
Cluster Court Town House
Independent Cluster
Clusters will be considered as independent clusters when surrounded from
all
sides by vehicular access roads and/or pedestrian paths
Density
The residential density is expressed in terms of number of dwelling units
per hectare.
Net Density
Where such densities are expressed exclusive ofcommunity facilities and
open spaces provisionand major roads (including incidental openspaces ),
there will be net residential densities.densities are expressed taking into
consideration the required open space provisionand community facilities
and major roads, thesewould be gross residential densities on
neighbourhood level, sector level or town level,
as the case may be. The provision of open spaces and community
facilities will depend on
the size of the residential community.Incidential open spaces are mainly
open spaces
required to be left around and in between twobuildings to provide light
and ventilation.
Independent Cluster
Clusters will be considered asindependent clusters when surrounded from
all
sides by vehicular access roads and/orpedestrian paths
Back to Back Cluster
Clusters when joined back to back and/or on sides will be considered as
'back to back
clusters
Interlocking Cluster
Clusters when joined at back and on sides withat least one side of a
cluster common and having some dwelling units opening onto or
havingaccess from the adjacent clusters will be considered as interlocking
clusters. Dwelling units in such clusters should have at least t\VO sides

open to external open space. Houses in an interlocking cluster can have

access, ventilation and light from the adjacent and cluster and
should also cater for future growth
Closed Clusters
Clusters with only one common entry intocluster open space Group
HODsing
Group housing can be permitted within clusterhousing concept. However,
dwelling units with p1in~h areas up to 20 011 should have scope for
adding a habitable room. Group housing in acluster should not be more
than 15 01 in height.
Size of Cluster Open Space :Minimum dimensions of open spaces shall be
nO.l !ess than 6 m or 3/4th of the height of buildings along the cluster
open space, whichever is higher. The area of such cluster court shall not
be less than 36 1111 Group housing around a cluster open space should
not be normally more than I ~ m in height. Maximum cluster width and
breadth can be 13 m.
Open Clusters
Cluster where cluster open spaces are linked to form a continuous open
space can be considered as open cluster

PLANNING
Plot Size
The minimum plot size permissible shall be15 rnl with 100 percent ground
coverage and an
FSI of tw~. 100 per~ent ground coverage andPSI of 2 \Yl11 be apphcable
up to plot size of
25 mi. For plot sizes beyond 25 m2 provision ofIS 8888 (Part 1 ) : 1993 will
be applicable.
Plot/Plinth Area for Slum Resettlement on Same Site In case of slum
resettlement on the same site minimum area may be reduced to 12-5 rot
with
potential for adding another )2-5 ml on firstfloor with an internal staircase.
Setbacks
No setbacks are needed fro 111 the edges ofcluster as
pedestrian/vehicular access roads
surrounding the cluster.
Right to Build in Sky
Pedestrian paths and vehicular access roads toclusters separting t\VO
adjacent clusters can be bridged to provide additional dewelling
units.While bridging the pedestrian path minimum clearance should be 2
storey height, length of such bridging should be not more than two
dwelling units. While bridging the vehicular access roads minimum
clearance should he 6 ft.
Vehicular Access

A right of way of at least 6 m width should beprovided up to the entrance

to the cluster to
facilitate emergency vehicle movement to cluster.

PARKING STANDARDS
Parking space shall be provided for different types of development as per norms.The following table
may be referred for deciding the parking norms for different use
zone/activities depending upon local vehicle ownership, mass transportation and parking needs.
Sl.
No.

Use/Use Premises

Equivalent Car
Spaces (ECS)
peR 100 sq.
mt. of floor
area

Residential
Group Housing, Plotted Housing (plots above
250 sq.mt.) And Mixed use.

0.50 - 1.50

Commercial
i) Wholesale Trade and Freight Complex
(including parking for loading and
unloading)
ii) City centre, district centre, hotel, cinema
and others
iii) Community centre, local shopping centre,
Convenience shopping centre.
Public and Semi-Public Facilities
i) Nursing home, hospitals, (other than
government), social, cultural and other
institutions, government and semigovernment
Offices.
ii)Schools, college and university government
hospitals
Industrial
Light and service industry, flatted group
industry, extensive industry

Open Space

1.50 - 2.50

1.00 2.00
0.50 1.50

0.50 - 1.50

0.25 - 0.75

0.50 1.00

Open space standards based on the minimum amount of open space

required per person and the population generated by the housing layout
and/or a percentage of the plot that would be adequate as open space
were analyzed. The open space can be used for providing the required
green spaces and/or can be used as a recreational amenity. Accordingly,
adequate areas for open spaces shall be developed for a housing layout.
Roads
A housing layout for the economically weaker and lower income sections
must be able to accommodate large vehicles like public transit vehicles,
trucks for moving, loading and unloading and emergency vehicles and
pedestrian space for access and walkability.
These standards were developed based on minimum road widths that will
be able to accommodate the above and the maximum percentage of the
area of the development that can be used for the roads. The standards for
roads were also developed based on criteria for vehicular and pedestrian
access roads to multifamily residential buildings. Accordingly, adequate
areas for roads shall be developed for a housing layout.
Street Lighting
Criteria for street lighting are based on illumination and safety
requirements for night lighting for public areas and roads. Energy
conservation methods for street lighting including solar powered lighting
were also developed. Accordingly, adequate and appropriate street
lighting with energy conservation requirements shall be developed for a
housing layout.