Why Redevelopment Societies Need As-Built Drawings
When a society goes for redevelopment, one number decides what every member walks back into: the existing carpet area of their flat. The new flat is offered as that area plus an agreed percentage. Get the existing area wrong and every member loses — permanently.
Most societies cannot prove that number. The original drawings are lost, or they no longer match a building that has been altered for thirty years. As-built drawings — a measured record of the buildings exactly as they stand today — are how a committee fixes this before signing anything. At Yogeshwar Associates we have prepared as-built sets for redevelopment societies across Pune and PCMC since 2007.
Call now — +91 96577 17268Tap to speak to a surveyor directly.Your entitlement is calculated from existing area
Every redevelopment offer is written the same way: existing carpet area, plus X per cent. That makes the existing area the base of the entire deal, member by member.
- A 10 sq ft error per flat, across 40 flats, is 400 sq ft of entitlement quietly lost
- The error compounds — the agreed percentage is applied on top of a wrong base
- Once the agreement is signed, the area schedule attached to it is what binds
An as-built survey measures each flat as it actually is and produces a flat-wise area schedule the committee owns. That schedule is what you negotiate from.
Do not negotiate on the developer's measurement
Developers routinely offer to measure the buildings themselves, often free of cost. The measurement may even be honest. It is still the other side's document, produced by the other side's team, and the committee has no independent way to check it.
An as-built survey commissioned by the society costs a fraction of one flat's worth of disputed area and removes the argument entirely. When both sides work from a set the committee paid for, the negotiation moves to terms instead of numbers.
Old society drawings cannot be trusted
Ask a committee for the building drawings and you usually get one of three answers: they are lost, they are with a builder who no longer exists, or they are the sanctioned plan from 1985.
Even when the sanctioned plan survives, it shows what was approved, not what was built. Three decades of change sit between them:
- Balconies enclosed, lofts added, dry balconies merged into kitchens
- Internal walls shifted or removed during member-level renovations
- Extra floors, terrace rooms and additions made over the years
- Stilt parking converted, common areas absorbed into ground-floor flats
None of this appears on the old plan. All of it affects area, feasibility and the members' own claims.
Unauthorised additions must be recorded, not hidden
Most older societies carry some construction that never appeared on a sanctioned plan. A committee's instinct is to leave it undocumented. That is the wrong call.
| If the addition is | What happens without an as-built |
|---|---|
| Regularisable under current rules | The chance to regularise it is missed; the area is lost for good |
| Not regularisable | It surfaces at sanction stage, after the agreement is signed |
| Occupied by one member | Member-level disputes erupt mid-project, with no record to settle them |
An as-built records what exists. What the society then does about it — regularise, surrender, or account for it in the deal — becomes a decision the committee takes with facts, not a surprise sprung on it by the planning authority.
Call now — +91 96577 17268Tap to speak to a surveyor directly.The PMC/PCMC file needs it anyway
The redevelopment proposal submitted to PMC or PCMC requires documentation of the existing structure. The architect preparing the file will need measured existing plans regardless of who pays for them.
Commissioning the as-built early, as the society, means the same set serves three purposes: your negotiation, the architect's feasibility, and the sanction file. Commissioning it late means the developer's architect produces it, and you are back to relying on the other side's document.
What the committee actually receives
We do not hand over raw field measurements. Our in-house drafting and architectural team converts the survey into a coordinated set a committee, an architect and a developer can all work from:
| Deliverable | What it settles |
|---|---|
| Flat-wise carpet area statement | Each member's entitlement base, in writing |
| CAD floor plans of every wing | The architect's feasibility and the sanction file |
| Elevations, sections and levels | Existing heights, floor-to-floor, and plot relationship |
| Existing built-up against the plot boundary | Setbacks, encroachments and usable area |
| Point cloud / BIM, where the building warrants it | A true 3D record for complex or irregular structures |
We measure with Total Station for dimensional control, add DGPS and drone/UAV capture to place the buildings correctly on the plot, and use scan-to-CAD where the structure is complex. The method is described on our as-built survey page.
Where it sits in the redevelopment sequence
As-built drawings are one part of the survey work a committee needs at the start — the plot boundary survey and the topographic survey settle how much land you own and what the ground does. Together they form the fact base every feasibility rests on.
We have set out the full sequence in survey requirements for society redevelopment in Pune, and explained the as-built itself in what an as-built survey is. Our drawings are prepared by an in-house architectural team, we are insured and experienced, and our survey work is trusted by PMC and PCMC.
Call now — +91 96577 17268Tap to speak to a surveyor directly.Is your society evaluating a redevelopment proposal? Contact Yogeshwar Associates and we will document your existing buildings before the numbers get fixed.