Chennai Air Funnel Zones: Building Height Restrictions

AAI has published a Colour Coded Zoning Map (CCZM) for Chennai (Drawing No. AAI/14-A, Version 1.0), available on the NOCAS portal. This map divides the area around the airport into color-coded grids, each showing a Permissible Top Elevation (PTE) in AMSL. If your plot falls in a red grid, the local body, whether CMDA, DTCP, or Panchayat, cannot approve your building plan at all. You file through NOCAS directly. The table below shows how height limits change across the main Obstacle Limitation Surfaces (OLS) zones around Chennai airport.

Chennai airport has two runways: primary runway 07/25 and secondary runway 12/30. Both generate separate funnel zones pointing in different directions. A plot that sits safely outside one funnel can fall squarely inside the other. Always verify against both runway alignments through NOCAS before signing.

The localities that brokers most actively pitch as "airport-adjacent premium" are also those with the tightest height ceilings. Tirusulam and Meenambakkam sit closest to the ARP and face inner horizontal surface limits. Pallavaram and Chromepet fall along the primary runway corridor toward the southeast and sit inside the funnel zone approach path for runway 25. Guindy, roughly 6–8 km from the ARP, sits in the conical surface zone.

The table below covers the corridors buyers are most active in, and the specific risk each carries.

One corridor buyers consistently misread is Guindy. Because it has commercial and IT demand entirely separate from the airport narrative, brokers skip the height restriction conversation. A mid-rise office or apartment project here still requires a NOCAS NOC, and the Permissible Top Elevation for your specific grid, not the street address, is what determines what you can build.

One more factor specific to Chennai: the proposed Parandur Greenfield Airport, located around 70 km west in Kanchipuram district, has received in-principle approval and central government clearance. Land acquisition for its 5,746-acre site is advancing, with construction of Phase 1 targeted for early 2026. Plots in the Parandur, Ekanapuram, and Sriperumbudur belt will eventually face a second, independent set of AAI funnel zone restrictions once that airport is notified.