Haryana resident welfare associations express concern over draft phasing policy

The RWAs said that to qualify as a project, the phase must include common areas, services, facilities and development works. (Representative image: PTI)

The draft phasing policy, floated by the Haryana Department of Town and Country Planning (DTCP), inviting suggestions and objections from the public and other stakeholders, has attracted sharp criticism from individual homebuyers and Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) of Gurugram.

The proposed policy allows a developer to break up projects into smaller phases, and allottees of one phase will have no say in the changes affecting another phase (of the same project).

It also allows, by omission, to register each tower in a complex as a separate phase, and permits builders to increase the floors in a tower without the consent of residents of other towers in the complex.

What are the concerns?

The RWAs expressed concern at 'repeated efforts to dilute the provisions of RERA (Real Estate Regulation Act)', and said that the proposed policy is biased in favour of developers. They claimed that the policy is detrimental to homebuyers' interests and prejudicial to RERA provisions.

The ‘Making Model Gurugram’, a platform representing many RWAs, submitted their objections and suggestions to the DTCP and requested time for discussion.

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"This is a divide-and-rule policy -- divide a project into several phases, and the builder will rule over home buyers. This is yet another builder-motivated move to dilute the RERA and disempower home buyers. In the name of ease-of-doing business, the DTCP is facilitating builders the ease-of-fleecing homebuyers," said Prof Gopal Arora, a member of Making Model Gurugram.

RWAs say that to qualify as a project, the phase must include common areas, services, facilities and development work.

What are the other provisions?

"The draft policy also provides for registering promised community/commercial sites as a separate phase, so that residents (of another phase) cannot object, even if it is removed altogether. It also restricts matters on which the already reduced number of allottees can have a say - such as increase of area/ FSI or decrease in the overall area of a project if the builder wants to surrender the land or the government decides to de-license it, since even such major changes in the sanction plans will not be construed as changes," the RWAs said in a statement.

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Siddhartha Bagchi, secretary, The Residency RWA, and a member of the group that wrote to the DTCP, raising objections, said: "The DTCP has used the term ‘phase’ from RERA (which requires a phase to be a standalone project), but made certain changes that allow arbitrary phasing. It says community and commercial sites are to be considered independent phase. Now, what if the developer refuses to build the common areas/community sites at a later stage, citing financial constraints? Then, the residents, all being in other phases, will have no remedies left. The draft rule would not then prevent each tower from being a separate phase. Let's say if a society has five towers. In this case, the residents of one tower won't have any say in case the developers increase the floors of other towers. It will create issues for residents as it will strain the same common area infrastructure."

‘Intentions good, but lot of loopholes’

Bagchi claimed that while the intentions are good, the documents have many loopholes. “In 2021, the DTCP had said that it will follow the definition of common areas as mentioned in the Haryana Apartment Act. Thus, it's completely in the hands of the builder as to what they put in the deed of declaration as the common area. The definition of Common Area must be adopted from RERA only. Moreover, the written consent of 2/3rd allottees has been effectively replaced by deemed consent, with DTCP playing an arbitration role.”

Senior Town Planner Narendra Singh Solanki said that the final policy will be notified by the DTCP only after considering all objections and suggestions.

"If a suggestion/objection is found to be valid, it will be incorporated into the policy. Only after that, the final policy will be notified," said Solanki.

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What RWAs want from govt

The RWAs wants the government to issue a blanket directive to all developers of ongoing projects to get themselves/ projects registered with the RERA within 15 days of the notification (of the directive).

The RWAs want the government to impose a penalty of Rs 10 lakh per day and continuous default cancellation of license by the DTCP, in case the developers fail to do so. They said that Occupation Certificates should be standalone for each tower/ amenity and should not be clubbed with others.

Experts said that any such directive bringing in any addition/modification in RERA is not easy as it would require consent from Parliament. They also said that the situation has improved, post RERA, and added that while provisions of harsh penalties may have a deterring effect, it may also negatively affect the developers who might be facing genuine problems.