Approach to formulate setback regulations for Indian hill towns

Urban settlements in India are growing tremendously and have critical issues related to uncontrolled and inappropriate development, environmental degradation, pollution, high energy consumption, and inefficient infrastructure which results in deteriorating living conditions. Therefore, achieving systematic and contextual development is the most challenging concern in all urban developments. This scenario is most critical in environmentally sensitive hill towns which have witnessed huge inappropriate development in last few decades. However, to achieve systematic and contextual development different building regulations like, floor area ratio (F.A.R.), setbacks, ground coverage, and height of building are enforced, but the problem of inappropriate development persists.Setback is a regulation which controls the spacing between buildings to have adequate solar exposure and ventilation. Presently, setback regulations are enforced uniformly throughout a hill town for a particular use which results in inadequate solar exposure to buildings, high energy consumption and unhealthy living conditions.This paper attempts to highlight a new approach to formulate setback regulations based on topography, slope direction, building height and access road for specific context to Shimla (the largest hilltop town of India) after the in depth study of problems of existing setback regulations in Indian hill towns.