Realty News Roundup: Smart Cities Project To Be Launched Soon; Nasik Developers Build Affordable Homes

The Union Urban Development Minister, M Venkaiah Naidu, said that 100 smart cities project will be launched any moment. On April 29, 2015, the Union Cabinet had approved the 100 smart cities project and the new urban renewal mission. The total outlay for these two missions is about Rs. 1 lakh crore.

Here are the other real estate related news stories of May 25, 2015:

Kochi to introduce new building tax: The civic body in Kochi will introduce new building tax regime in which commercial buildings like shops and restaurants with plinth area up to 100 sq.m. will be expected to pay a tax of Rs. 90 per sq.m. Residents with a 60 sq.m. home will be exempted from paying the building tax. Residents of homes or flats in Cochin should pay the existing tax rate, which is calculated on the basis of annual rental value (ARV) in the area, if the plinth area is 660-2,000 sq.ft. .

Protest against Lodha group for not fulfilling promises to home buyers: In a protest against the Lodha group, nearly 100 property owners in the Lodha Casa Paradiso project at Sanathnagar held placards and stopped the sale of properties. The home owners have alleged that the Lodha group has been neglecting them after not providing them with covered parking space as promised. The home owners' other grievance is that the club house in their project is situated at a location not accessible to most.

Cupboard space and staircase to be included in FSI in Nasik: According to the development control rules of the draft development plan (DP) in Nashik, cupboard space and staircase will be included in floor space index from now on. In Nashik, basic FSI limit was raised up to 1.20 for properties located on large roads of 30 meters or more. As builders will get 2 FSI if they build low cost residential projects in Nashik, developers are building affordable homes to get an FSI of 2.

Bhubaneswar authority's plan to build homes for slum dwellers gets nod:  The Odisha government has approved the Bhubaneswar Development Authority's (BDA) proposal to build 240 houses for evicted slum dwellers at Chandrasekharpur. The BDA said that the families removed by BDA from its land at Tarinibasti and Arabinda Basti will be rehabilitated in the proposed project. The project is under the revised affordable homes policy 2013, and it will replace the slum rehabilitation policy of the state government.