KOCHI: The much-awaited draft notification on coastal regulation zone (CRZ) released by the ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MoEFCC) on Wednesday will trigger a wave of constructions across the state’s coastal belt The draft has proposed a significant relaxation in the buffer zone along the seaboard within which construction is regulated.The biggest leverage is that the freeze on constructions along the coastal zone has been more or less lifted with the tourism sector becoming the biggest beneficiary. “For the tourism sector, this new amendment gives a lot of relaxations. Toilets, changing rooms, drinking water facility and temporary shacks can be constructed even on beaches,” said legal expert Adv S Sahasranaman.Even homestays are permitted. “The existing residential buildings can be converted into homestays. But the plinth areas cannot be increased,” he added. The CRZ will not be a bar for public utilities like roads even if it passes through sensitive mangrove forests.“Several waterfront areas which have unique ecosystems like mangroves, especially in places like Kannur, will be damaged. One can already see evidence of such construction in Kochi,” said K K Ramachandran , former member secretary, Kerala coastal zone management authority ( KCZMA ).He said that the introduction of CRZ–III into A and B clauses will address the state’s main concern of issuing permission to dwelling units. The draft notification suggests reducing the CRZ—an area measured from the high tide line (HTL) on the landward side—to 50 metres from the existing 100m. In case of regions close to a bay or creek, the protection may apply to a much narrower slice of land. If approved, it will enable constructions closer to coastlines. But within the CRZ, more classifications have been introduced to delineate environmentally sensitive areas such as reefs, mangroves and nesting sites.The new draft allows densely populated CRZ-III areas, where the population density is more than 2,161per sq km as per 2011census base, to be designated as CRZ –III A. In CRZ-III A, area up to 50m from the HTL on the landward side shall be earmarked as no development zone (NDZ), provided the coastal zone management plans as per this notification, framed with due consultative process, have been approved. “This will probably take care of the issues raised by the state government. The coastal communities appear to benefit from this new inclusion,” said Ramachandran.However, constructions above 300sqm must obtain KCZMA clearance. “The clause that reducing the distance for backwater islands to 20m might be useful for us,” said Kerala Latin Catholic Association general secretary, Sherry Thomas.

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