RICS comes up with guidance on the measurement of land for real estate projects

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has come up with new guidance on the measurement of land for development projects such as new housing and commercial development.

The guidance will be used by planners, surveyors, developers, architects, government and legal administrators around the world.

“This guidance offers a consistent way to measure land – whether that’s delivering desperately needed homes, new infrastructure or preparing vacant spaces for future development,” said Tony Mulhall MRICS, Associate Director of the Land Professional Group at the RICS.


Five core definitions have been formalised by RICS to assist with the global measurement of land include Land Ownership Area (LOA), Site Area (SA), Net Development Area (NDA), Plot Ratio (PR) and Site Coverage (SC).

“Land measurement is a vital day-to-day component of real estate and this guidance introduces, for the first time, clear and fixed definitions to assist with that process,” said Jonathan Manns, Britain’s urbanists, chartered surveyor and town planner who had lead-authored the guidance.