Town Planning (Urban and Regional Planning): Plan Hierarchy, Density and FSI
Town Planning (Urban and Regional Planning) carries the heaviest weight in the MPPSC Assistant Town Planner paper. The section does not reward memorised definitions; it tests whether you can read a plan, apply a spatial standard, and defend a land-use decision with numbers. Expect theory, Indian plan-making practice (URDPFI Guidelines, 2014) and small calculations on density, FSI and land budgeting.
Plan hierarchy in Indian practice
- Perspective plan - long-range (about 20–25 years) policy document: vision, spatial structure, broad infrastructure direction.
- Development plan / master plan - statutory 10–20 year land-use plan with a zoning map and development control regulations.
- Zonal and local area plans - refine the master plan for a sector; in Madhya Pradesh the local statutory instrument is the Town Planning (TP) scheme.
- Layout / subdivision plan - plot-level approval stage.
Concepts that recur
- FSI (FAR) = total permissible built-up area ÷ plot area. It is not a ground coverage control; coverage is capped separately by setbacks.
- Net density counts only residential land; gross density includes roads, open spaces and amenities within the residential area.
- Neighbourhood unit (Clarence Perry) - a primary school and daily shops within roughly a quarter-mile (400 m) walk.
- Classic city models: Burgess (concentric zones), Hoyt (sectors along transport corridors), Harris and Ullman (multiple nuclei).
- Patrick Geddes - survey before plan; Ebenezer Howard - garden city (1898), about 30,000 residents on a 1,000-acre town site ringed by a permanent 5,000-acre green belt.
Worked example
A 100 ha TP scheme contains 45 ha of saleable residential plots, sanctioned at a net residential density of 250 persons per hectare. Population = 45 × 250 = 11,250. Gross density for the whole scheme = 11,250 ÷ 100 = 112.5 persons per hectare. The scheme-level figure is less than half the net figure, because roads, open spaces and amenities absorb the balance.
Traps that cost marks
- Reporting net density when the question asks for gross, or vice versa.
- Treating FSI as a coverage control.
- Attributing 'survey before plan' to Howard, or sector planning in Chandigarh to Geddes rather than Le Corbusier.
- Forgetting that URDPFI is advisory guidance issued by MoHUA, not a statute.