The government does not want to make the provision of stilt parking mandatory in residential plots in Delhi if the plot owner has enough parking space to accommodate cars within the compound. Soon, both urban development ministry and DDA will come out with guidelines on stilt parking and provisions that will prohibit people parking vehicles in public space.

Recently, the UD ministry submitted an affidavit to Delhi high court stating that plots measuring 100-500 sq meters with two dwelling units won't need to build stilt parking. Similarly for plots of 500-1,000 sq meters the relaxation is for four dwelling units. The ministry submitted this in response to a court case.

Last year, then Delhi LG Tejendra Khanna had issued a circular making it mandatory for all residential plots beyond 100 sq meters to build stilt parking so that public space is not used for parking of vehicles.

In a PIL, a Jor Bagh resident had alleged that despite the LG's order "illegal clearance" was given to rich owners of huge plots, allowing reconstruction of the existing houses into multi-storey residential units without mandatory stilt parking.

Disposing of the PIL, the bench last week said any policy on parking lot norms should ensure that vehicles are not parked outside the property.

Architects said the confusion was unnecessarily created by issuing the circular since the provision in Master Plan - 2021 is very clear that cars have to be accommodated within the plot no matter stilt or no stilt.

"For residential buildings, one car space per 100 sq meters of built up area is required to be accommodated. So, if you build more, you need to provide for parking space for more car units. Therefore, you need to use stilt parking option," said Sudhir Vohra, architect and expert member on DDA's Master Plan review group.

He added if a plot owner builds less and can accommodate the cars in the plot, there is no need to have stilt parking. "Stilt parking is not mandatory in the Master Plan," he said.

However, UD ministry officials said that the provisions relating to parking within the plot area are normally not adhered, which results in vehicles spilling over on to the roads, the provision of stilt parking needs to be addressed.

"If everyone followed rules, there would have been no problem and there won't have been a single car on road. While enforcement is a bigger problem, the policies need to be made based on practical experience. May be the former Lt Governor should have come out with the order following the process of public consultation," said a government official.