CRZ mapping and demarcation: fixing the zone boundaries across a project site on cadastral scale.

CRZ-I covers ecologically sensitive areas and the area between the Low Tide Line and the High Tide Line; CRZ-II covers developed land areas within existing municipal limits that are substantially built up; CRZ-III covers relatively undisturbed, largely rural areas, sub-divided into IIIA and IIIB with different No Development Zone widths; and CRZ-IV is the water area from the Low Tide Line seaward and in tidal influenced water bodies.

Because Coastal Zone Management Plans are prepared at 1:25,000, at which a plot boundary is a fraction of a millimetre and cannot be resolved. Cadastral-scale mapping at 1:4000 shows individual survey numbers against the CRZ lines, which is what a decision on a specific plot requires.

On the landward side of the seafront the CRZ extends to 500 metres from the High Tide Line. Along tidal influenced water bodies the CRZ Notification 2019 applies a narrower width, and the No Development Zone within CRZ-III differs between the IIIA and IIIB sub-categories. The applicable widths must be read from the notification against the specific setting.

State and Union Territory Coastal Zone Management Authorities prepare CZMPs, which are approved by the MoEF&CC. They are the reference document for CRZ boundaries in that State, and a project demarcation is prepared against the approved plan in force, not against a superseded or draft version.

It is the belt measured landward from the High Tide Line within which new construction is generally prohibited, subject to the exceptions the notification itself provides. Its width depends on the CRZ category and sub-category and on whether the stretch is densely populated as defined in the notification. A structure proposed within it is not a matter of persuasion; it is not permissible.

No. CRZ clearance is a separate requirement under the CRZ Notification 2019, and a project may need both CRZ clearance and Environment Clearance under the EIA Notification 2006. Where both apply they are often processed together on Parivesh, but the CRZ demarcation is specific to the coastal regulation and does not substitute for EC documentation.

Before the layout is designed. Mapping after a layout is fixed routinely produces structures sitting in No Development Zones or CRZ-I patches, at which point the project is redesigning rather than applying. Where site acquisition is still open, the demarcation is also the honest test of how much of a parcel is actually developable.