All You Need To Know About Coastal & River Regulation Zones

If you are in Mumbai, you might have heard about the implications of the Costal Regulation Zone norms and how it has affects real estate project development or infrastructure construction in the city. Not just in Mumbai, cities with coastline have to follow CRZ norms to control construction and economic activities close to these natural water bodies.

PropGuide takes you through the importance of these norms and how it impacts property market:

What is a coastal regulation zone?

To regulate activities in these areas, the Ministry of Environment and Forests issued a notification under the Environment Protection Act, 1986, which termed coastal land up to 500 meters from High-Tide Line and 100 meters from the banks of creeks, backwater and river as the Costal Regulation Zone. There are five categories under CRZ and laws governing them are applicable across the country only in the inter-tidal zone and land part of the coastal area. The notification also restricted establishing and expanding industries and processing units in CRZs.

What are CRZ norms?

The norms have been revised at regular intervals. In fact, it has been amended 25 times before being comprehensively revised in 2011. The coastal areas have been classified into five zones.

CRZ-I: The area between low and high tide line is CRZ-1 and these are the ecologically sensitive area. No construction activity is allowed in this area except exploration of natural gas and extraction of salts.

CRZ-II: The developed area falling in this zone forms up the shoreline of the coast. The area can have infrastructural facilities such as water supply, sewerage, drainage system along with approach roads and other infrastructural facilities which have been legally designated as urban areas by the municipal authorities. 

CRZ-III: The area which does not fall in either of the above zones and but is within municipal limits or in other legally designated urban areas, which are not substantially built up, falls under CRZ-III.

CRZ-IV: This area allows fishing and allied activities and solid waste can be let off in this zone.

Impact on real estate development

Development along coastal areas is governed by these norms and they impact real estate construction in various ways. Few cities have been given special consideration due to urbanisation close to the coast. This includes Mumbai, some cities in Kerala and the Andaman and Nicobar Island. For instance, at the CRZ-I areas in Greater Mumbai, construction of roads, approach roads and missing link roads has been approved. Development or redevelopment work in CRZ-II can also be undertaken in accordance with the norms laid down in the Town and Country Planning Regulations.  Moreover, the slum redevelopment projects have also been allowed in CRZ-II areas, provided the construction is undertaken through joint ventures.

Construction in these regulated areas has to get approvals and clearances from the Coastal Regulation Management Authority.

With time, the norms have been diluted where the construction activities have been allowed in CRZ-II area through land reclamation. The move has invited resistance from environmentalist due to posed threat from sea bound disasters like Tsunami that can cause the destruction of human lives and public property. Several infrastructure projects have been stalled due to lack of clearance from the Ministry of Environment. This includes work on the Trans Harbour Link Road and the Navi Mumbai International Airport.

Earlier in 2016, the Union environment & forests ministry had also come up with a blueprint for River Regulation Zones or RRZs, modelled on the guidelines for CRZs. The idea behind having RRZs is to regulate and prohibit developmental activities on riverfronts and floodplains; and a national river conservation authority under a secretary in the ministry was proposed to be set up.

So far, there is little information available on the contours of the RRZ norms – if you visit the official website of the environment ministry, for example, among the six names listed under the 'Major Initiatives' tab is 'Nation River Conservation Directorate'. When you click on this option, you get the message 'Under Construction'.

However, since the RRZ norms are expected to be modelled on the guidelines for Coastal Regulation Zones (CRZs), PropGuide looks at the key features of the CRZ norms.

Key features

• Formed in 1991 under the Environment Protection Act, 1986, the norms cover coastal stretches of seas, bays, estuaries, creeks, rivers and backwaters “which are influenced by tidal action”.
• Under coastal zone fall the area of up to 500 metres from the high-tide line (HTL) and the land between HTL and the low-tide line (LTL).
• The government notification defines HTL as the “line on the land up to which the highest water line reaches during the spring tide”. It asks the authorities to duly demarcate HTL in all parts of the country.
• Under the prohibited list are setting up and expansion of existing industries in these stretches, manufacturing, storage and disposal of hazardous substances; setting up and expansion of fish processing units; discharge of untreated waste and dumping of waste from thermal power stations; mining of sand and rocks; and harvesting of ground water and alerting any natural features of the things.

The issues

• Several issues emerged while implementing the directives of these norms, as many areas were either not covered or not taken into account. This led to several amendments being inserted into the guidelines until the government issued a new notification in 2001, replacing the old one. While the broad structure remained the same, the government used an approach that encouraged development while keeping the CRZs intact.
• Despite the eased conditions, norms regulating CRZs have been widely criticised by urban planners for hindering infrastructural growth.
• Due to an ambiguity on the norms on preservation and growth along rivers and surrounding areas, development activity led to a great amount of water pollution in the country. When the final guidelines on RRZs are out, they will be expected to clear much of the ambiguities regarding riverfronts and floodplains.

With inputs from Sunita Mishra & Surbhi Gupta