What can I build on my plot
Site coverage ratio, plot ratio, setbacks and land dedications, explained without jargon. And the rule almost nobody states: national law gives you the vocabulary, but the numbers come from the POT of your municipality.
Gustavo Mejía Martínez12 min readUpdated 5 September 2026
In this article
- The two ratios, and how they differ
- What counts and what does not, and why it changes by city
- What national law does not define
- Where to look it up
- The ruling is not the permit
- Urban, expansion and rural: what changes
- Land dedications: the cost nobody mentioned
- Before you sign: what to check, and where
- The soil survey is not to be skipped
- Where to start
It is the first question anybody who has bought a plot asks, and the one the internet answers worst. You will find tables of ratios, percentages and heights presented as though they were national. They are not.
So what follows is not going to tell you how much you can build. It is going to teach you to read it, which is more useful and works in any city.
The two ratios, and how they differ
Everything turns on two numbers. They are defined in national rules, in these words:
Índice de ocupación: the proportion of the ground area that may be occupied by building at ground floor under roof […] Índice de construcción: the maximum number of times the surface of a site may, by definition of the rules, be turned into built area.
In plain terms: the site coverage ratio measures the shadow the building casts on the ground. The plot ratio measures the square metres of every storey added together. One is surface, the other is accountable volume.
A worked example
A plot of 300 m², with a site coverage ratio of 0.60 and a plot ratio of 1.50:
| Calculation | Working | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Maximum footprint at ground floor | 300 × 0.60 | 180 m² |
| Ground left free | 300 − 180 | 120 m², 40% of the plot |
| Total buildable area | 300 × 1.50 | 450 m² across all storeys |
| Storeys at full footprint | 450 ÷ 180 | 2.5 |
With those numbers you can do two full storeys of 180 m² plus a third of 90, or three storeys of 150 each if you would rather occupy less ground and leave more courtyard. The rules give you a ceiling; the shape is your decision.
The trap: which area is the ratio applied to?
The national definition divides by "the total area of the property", but several land-use plans apply the ratio to the net developable area or to the usable area, both of which are smaller than the plot you bought.
The difference is a chain of subtractions: from the gross area you take off what goes to main roads, primary networks and protected areas, and what is left is the net developable area; from that you take off the land dedicated for local roads, public space and community facilities, and what is left is the usable area.
What counts and what does not, and why it changes by city
Here you can see plainly why there is no national answer. Comparing the land-use plans of Bogotá and Cali on exactly the same question:
| Element | Bogotá | Cali |
|---|---|---|
| Basements and semi-basements | Excluded where they are parking or vehicle circulation | Excluded if they are parking, storage or plant rooms. They count as a storey if the slab projects above what is permitted |
| Stairs and circulation cores | Expressly excluded | No general exclusion |
| Car parking | Excluded at any level | Excluded only in basement or semi-basement |
| Plant and services rooms | Excluded | No general exclusion from the ratio |
| Private communal facilities | Excluded up to one storey | Excluded with no limit of storeys |
| Flat roofs and uncovered hard areas | Excluded | Excluded |
The sharpest divergence is the one over circulation cores: the same stair and lift core may not count in Bogotá and may count in Cali. In a building of several storeys, that is hundreds of square metres of difference on the same project.
What national law does not define
There are four words everybody uses that are defined in no national rule: aislamiento, antejardín, retiro and maximum height. The law only says that the POT must regulate them.
- Aislamiento, the boundary setback: the distance the building has to leave from the plot boundaries. Side, rear or front, depending on which side.
- Antejardín, the front garden: the strip between the pavement and where the building starts.
- Retiro, the standoff: a compulsory distance from one specific feature: a road, a stream, a power line.
- Paramento, the building line: this one is national. It is the "vertical plane marking where building begins on a plot", and where there is no front garden it coincides with the demarcation line.
The first three can only be found out from the POT of your municipality, and they change from one sector to another inside the same city.
Where to look it up
Every city has its own tool, and all of them are free. What varies is how usable they are.
- Cali. The land-use enquiry is public, immediate and needs no registration: you search by address or by cadastral number and it returns a document with the permitted activities. The IDESC map viewer lets you look at the plot against the mapping of the POT.
- Medellín. It is the best of the three: the enquiry against the land-use map is public and needs no registration, by address or by cadastral identifier, over Acuerdo 48 de 2014.
- Bogotá. The Secretaría Distrital de Planeación keeps a per-plot planning enquiry, and the POT in force is Decreto 555 de 2021. The web addresses of these tools change often; look for them from the Secretaría’s own portal before trusting a saved link.
The ruling is not the permit
This is the most costly confusion in the whole subject, and the rules settle it with surprising clarity:
The issue of these rulings grants no rights and imposes no obligations on the party requesting them, and does not modify the rights conferred by permits that are in force or that have been executed.
And on the other side, on the permit:
Final administrative acts of particular and concrete content that authorise planning actions consolidate legal situations in the hands of their holders.
The ruling is an informative photograph of the rules on a given date. The permit is a right. If the rules change between the one and the other, the ruling does not protect you.
Urban, expansion and rural: what changes
The class of land is not a label: it decides whether the plot can be built on today, in some years’ time, or never.
Expansion land: the most expensive trap
Expansion land may only be the subject of urbanisation and construction once the corresponding partial plan has been adopted. Until the corresponding partial plans are approved, in urban expansion zones only agricultural and forestry uses shall be permitted.
Buying in expansion land with no partial plan adopted is buying a plot that cannot be built on today, and that cannot be subdivided either. The seller is not lying when they say it "is going to be urban": it may well be. What nobody knows is when.
Rural land: the Unidad Agrícola Familiar
In the countryside there is a limit that admits no negotiation, and breaching it is punished not with a fine but with something worse:
Save for the exceptions set out in the following article, rural properties may not be divided below the extent determined by INCORA as the Unidad Agrícola Familiar for the municipality or zone concerned. Consequently, on pain of absolute nullity of the act or contract, no action or transaction may be carried out resulting in the division of a rural property into areas smaller than the one set as the Unidad Agrícola Familiar for the corresponding municipality by INCORA.
Absolute nullity means the transaction never existed. It is the reason there are rural plots sold whose buyer can neither register the deed nor get a permit.
Two more national rules on rural land worth knowing: on suburban land the minimum unit of action may not be smaller than two hectares (with the exception of a single dwelling house for the owner), and for commerce, services and industry the site coverage ratio may not exceed 30% of the property; the rest goes to conservation of native vegetation.
Land dedications: the cost nobody mentioned
If you bought a plot in a consolidated neighbourhood, this probably does not apply to you: the dedications were made when the area was urbanised. If you bought an unurbanised parcel of land, it does, and it is the biggest surprise in the whole process.
To dedicate is to hand land over free to the municipality for roads, public space and community facilities, in exchange for the right to urbanise. The orders of magnitude, in two cities:
- Cali: 27% of the net developable area for public space and community facilities (20% on site, 2% in areas of deficit, 5% for facilities) plus the road area that comes out of the outline scheme. It is 27% and roads on top.
- Bogotá: under the development treatment, the dedication for parks and squares is calculated on the net developable area and scales with how much you want to build: the percentages run from 17% to more than 50%. The more buildable area, the more land handed over.
Before you sign: what to check, and where
| What can ruin the plot | Where it gets ruled out |
|---|---|
| Road reservation. Land held back for a future public work | The certificado de tradición, the land registry extract (the reservation has to be recorded), and the written ruling on the planning rules |
| Hazard or risk zone. It may call for detailed studies or bar the permit altogether | The municipal disaster risk management body |
| Watercourse buffer. A strip of 30 metres on each side of watercourses, and 100 metres around springs | The competent regional environmental authority |
| Easements. Of way, of power lines, of water mains | The certificado de tradición. Careful: an easement in fact may not be recorded. You have to go to the plot |
| Listed cultural property. It requires a concept design approved by the cultural authority before the permit | The lists of the Ministry of Culture and of the local heritage institute |
| Protected or reserved area | The national register of protected areas |
| Area and boundaries that do not match | The certificado de tradición and the cadastral record. National viewers orient but do not settle official boundaries |
The soil survey is not to be skipped
It circulates widely that below a certain area no soil survey is needed. That assertion is worth distrusting: it rests on articles that were repealed in 2021, and the cross-reference was left orphaned.
What does stand up is Ley 400 de 1997, which defines the geotechnical engineer as the civil engineer who signs the geotechnical survey and under whose responsibility the foundation parameters and the amplification effects of the seismic wave are set.
Put another way: the soil survey is not a paperwork requirement. It is what says how your house stands up.
Where to start
- Ask for the written ruling on the planning rules for your plot. The verbal enquiry is free by law; the written ruling costs 8.34 UVT wherever there is a curaduría. It is the starting point.
- Find out both ratios and which area they are applied to.
- Divide the plot ratio by the coverage ratio to know how many storeys fit.
- Ask what counts and what does not in your city: basements, circulation cores, car parking.
- Check the class of land. If it is expansion land with no partial plan, nothing gets built today.
- Get the certificado de tradición and read it right through.
- And remember that the ruling gives you no right at all. Only filing the permit application freezes the rules.
With that you already know more than most people who buy a plot, and you know which are the questions that cannot be answered from a screen.
Sources
- Ley 388 de 1997, de desarrollo territorial · Departamento Administrativo de la Función Pública · 18 July 1997
- Decreto 1077 de 2015, único reglamentario del sector vivienda, ciudad y territorio · Departamento Administrativo de la Función Pública · 26 May 2015
- Ley 160 de 1994, sistema nacional de reforma agraria, artículos 38 y 44 · Departamento Administrativo de la Función Pública · 3 August 1994
- Ley 400 de 1997, normas sobre construcciones sismo resistentes · Ministerio de Ambiente, Vivienda y Desarrollo Territorial · 19 August 1997
- Acuerdo 0373 de 2014, Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial de Santiago de Cali · Departamento Administrativo de Planeación de Cali · 3 December 2014
- Decreto Distrital 555 de 2021, Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial de Bogotá · Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá · 29 December 2021
- Ley 9 de 1989, de reforma urbana, artículo 37 sobre afectaciones · Departamento Administrativo de la Función Pública · 11 January 1989
- Decreto 1076 de 2015, único reglamentario del sector ambiente · Departamento Administrativo de la Función Pública · 26 May 2015
- Ley 1523 de 2012, política nacional de gestión del riesgo de desastres · Departamento Administrativo de la Función Pública · 24 April 2012
- Registro Único Nacional de Áreas Protegidas · Parques Nacionales Naturales de Colombia
- Certificado de tradición y libertad en línea · Superintendencia de Notariado y Registro
I have a plot and I want to build on it.
We check what the planning rules allow on your plot, what can be built and what it costs, before drawing anything. Then we develop the full project through to the drawings and the permit application with the curaduría (the licensed private office that issues building permits in Cali and other large Colombian municipalities; in smaller ones, the municipal planning office).
The first call is free and lasts 15 minutes. You come away knowing whether we can help and what it would involve.