Impact of Land Policies on Housing Markets : Case of Noida, India

Housing delivery is a major challenge to most developing nations and to facilitate housing, the Government has repeatedly intervened through policies to promote housing especially in urban areas. This paper focuses on land policies and how they impact housing markets by studying the case of Noida – am emerging urban centre in the suburbs of Delhi, the capital of India. In order to facilitate housing delivery, Noida changed its land policy to promote private developers in undertaking delivery of housing projects. The study is based on the evaluation of the approaches under the policy and the impact that they had in land access and ultimately housing delivery and issues that arose as a consequence of the policies. This paper undertakes a study of the provisions of the land policies, analyses the impact of the policies against parameters relevant for the housing markets. The results indicate that the policy had a pro-developer approach and ensured increase in housing supply to cater to the shortage but the approach eventually led to increased relaxations to enable developers access to vital urban land and failed to ensure land cost recoveries, buyer protection and timely deliveries of the housing project. The land policy thus became a tool for builders to attract investments and speculated housing markets which also benefited the Authorities, the pole bearers for housing delivery to its citizens, based housing on market forces. The result has been that deliveries have been poor with builders have incomplete and also abandoned projects. The study highlights the need to critically think and assess land policies with the focus of ensuring delivery to the buyer as is being promoted through recent interventions and modifications in the real estate Act