BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court said the Zonal Regulations of Revised Master Plan (RMP) 2015, framed under provisions of the Karnataka Town and Country Planning (KTCP) Act, will prevail in relation to a balcony and the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) will be required to permit the construction of a balcony in accordance with Regulation 3.11 (iv).
As a further consequence, BBMP cannot limit the length of the balcony as it could have done under Regulation 14.3 of the BBMP Building Bylaws, the court added. The court noted that there can be no limitation to the length of the balcony. But the court made it clear that the floor area of the balcony constructed as per zonal regulations will be taken into consideration while calculating the Floor Area Ratio (FAR).
Justice NS Sanjay Gowda passed the order while disposing of two separate petitions filed by Vineeth Nari and Felicity Adobe LLP about the conflict between the BBMP bylaws and zonal regulations on the construction of the balcony.
The court said the floor area of the balcony should be taken into consideration while calculating the FAR and the builders cannot claim exemption of this area of the balcony from FAR as provided under Building Bylaws, 2003.
Under the bylaws, the length of the balcony should be limited to one-third the length of each side of the building, while under the Zonal Regulations of RMP 2015, there is no such stipulation, the court said.
“It is to be stated here that the provisions of the Building Bye-Laws framed by the BBMP cannot obviously be contrary to the Zonal Regulations. However, when there is any conflict between the building Bylaws and the Zonal Regulations, it is obvious that by virtue of Section 76M of the KTCP Act and Section 249A of the BBMP Act, which is the Zonal Regulations of RMP 2015 which would prevail,” the court said.