Avenir Developments designs, submits and builds houses across DHA Islamabad–Rawalpindi. This page sets out what DHA permits, how the approval route actually works, which phase your plot sits in under its correct name, and what construction costs — then points you to your own phase.
Where your plot sits
DHA Islamabad–Rawalpindi has renamed several of its phases, and a good deal of what circulates online never caught up. Lists naming a DHA Phase 8, or treating DHA Valley and Phase 7 as two different places, are wrong — and if a firm has the phase structure wrong, it is worth asking what else it has not checked.
The list below is correct as at 8 September 2026, and it includes DHA Margalla Enclave, which is a joint-venture scheme rather than a numbered phase but is planned and sold alongside them. Phase designations and sector status do change, so confirm your own plot's position with DHA's Town Planning and Building Control directorate before committing to a design programme.
The joint venture is the fact that governs everything else. Before a drawing is prepared you have to establish which authority's regulations apply to your plot and which approval route it follows — DHA's, CDA's, or a combination of the two. Setbacks, permissible covered area and the submission checklist can each differ depending on the answer, and a design drawn to the wrong regime is a design that comes back. We confirm the current position for your plot before a design programme is agreed. That week is cheaper than the redraw.
DHA Margalla Enclave →An established phase with built neighbours on most streets. Floor level, boundary walls and street character can be read from the plots on either side. Work here is often a rebuild rather than a first build.
DHA Phase 1 →Also established, and adjoining the commercial spine along the Islamabad Expressway and GT Road corridor. Party-wall and level conditions are usually readable on site.
DHA Phase 2 →The blocks are governed by the same byelaws but differ in plot mix and street layout. Confirm which block your plot sits in before design starts, because it changes plot dimensions and access.
DHA Phase 3 →DHA describes Phase 4 as roughly 4,000 kanals of semi-hilly, terraced ground alongside the Soan river. Where the plot sits above or below the road, retaining structures and fill are a real budget line rather than an afterthought.
DHA Phase 4 →Sits opposite Phase 2 on the Islamabad Expressway. Development is uneven across sectors, so the condition of your street matters more here than the reputation of the phase.
DHA Phase 5 →At roughly 55,000 kanals, one of the largest phases. Many streets have few or no built neighbours, which means floor level is set from the road crown and the street's drainage fall rather than from the houses next door.
DHA Phase 6 →Planned around smaller plot categories than the numbered phases. Confirm your sector's development and possession position before commissioning drawings.
DHA Valley →A newer scheme on the motorway and ring road side. Confirm current possession status directly with DHA before committing to a design programme.
DHA Gandhara →A later scheme off Park Road. Confirm sector status and the applicable approval route with DHA before design.
Detailed guidance for this scheme is in preparation.One community inside DHA Islamabad is routinely listed as though it were a phase. It is not, and the distinction matters because it changes who approves your drawings and what you are permitted to alter.
It is worth separating for a practical reason. In a developer-led community the homes are largely delivered built, so the work is usually interior design, fit-out or remodelling rather than the design, submit and build sequence set out below. Two things to confirm before commissioning anything: whether your unit falls under DHA's Building Control or the developer's own architectural controls, and what the community permits by way of external alteration. Those answers change the scope entirely.
Emaar Canyon Views →The setback, height and covered-area figures that dominate search results usually belong to DHA Lahore, which runs an entirely separate building control regime. If you have been reading those, start again — they do not apply here. See how DHA Lahore's byelaws differ.
The approval route
Building in DHA Islamabad follows a fixed sequence, and it does not begin with a design. It begins with paperwork and a site check. House construction here is governed by the DHA Islamabad and DHA Rawalpindi Revised Byelaws and Regulations 2022, which replaced the earlier Building Control Regulation, and is administered through the Town Planning and Building Control directorate. DHA may amend these regulations.
The sequence below reflects the route owners follow in practice, and it is the same across the numbered phases. What differs by phase is your sector's development and possession position, not the process.
Apply through the Town Planning section at the Transfer & Record Office with the allotment letter and CNIC, pay the applicable dues, and collect the site plan and possession form from the Town Planning and Building Control department at DHA's main office. An attorney holder attracts an additional charge.
Demarcation is the physical marking out of your plot on the ground. Corners, dimensions, road position and levels are confirmed against the site plan. Having the architect present is worth the visit, because this is where a discrepancy between paper and ground is cheapest to find.
A soil bearing capacity report establishes how much load the ground beneath your plot can carry. It forms part of the drawing submission and it determines the foundation design, so commissioning it before the concept is finalised is the cheaper sequence.
Both are selected from DHA's registered lists. Drawings prepared by professionals outside those lists create avoidable scrutiny problems even when the drawings themselves are competent.
Concept, elevation, working drawings, structural design based on the actual soil report rather than an assumed value, and MEP layouts — mechanical, electrical and plumbing — coordinated so that the sets agree with one another before anyone submits them.
The submission drawings — the naqsha DHA actually scrutinises — go in with structural drawings stamped by the registered structural engineer, a structural stability certificate, the soil bearing capacity report, ownership documents, the prescribed forms, a soft copy and paid dues.
Building Control reviews the file and returns observations for correction. Scrutiny dues are the fees payable for that review. A file whose architectural, structural and MEP sets already agree with one another goes through fewer rounds, and rounds are where programmes are lost.
Work begins only once the approved drawings and the inspection chart have been issued. The inspection chart is the record signed off by the concerned officer at defined stages as construction proceeds. Work that runs ahead of a stage sign-off is work that may have to be opened up again.
Completion documentation is submitted with the approved drawings and site plan to close the file. Leaving this open causes problems at transfer, not during construction, which is why it is so often forgotten.
Most avoidable delay in DHA Islamabad comes from reversing this order — commissioning a design first, then discovering that plot levels, road position or soil conditions do not support what was drawn. Correct as at 8 September 2026; confirm the current checklist with Town Planning and Building Control, as requirements are updated periodically.
Appointment
This is a regulatory question before it is a preference. DHA maintains registered lists of architects and structural engineers, and drawings prepared outside those lists create scrutiny problems that land on the owner rather than on whoever prepared them.
Which firm is right for you is a separate question, and a bigger one. Five checks below apply to any practice in Islamabad, this one included. Ask them before you appoint anybody.
DHA's byelaws require the structural engineer to hold PEC registration with a minimum qualification of MSc Structures and to sit on the DHA Islamabad and DHA Rawalpindi panel. That is a specific, checkable requirement. Ask for the registration under which your structural drawings will be stamped.
A firm is not an architect. One person signs and stamps the set that goes to Building Control, and that person should be on DHA's registered architect list. If a firm cannot answer this in one sentence, that is the answer.
Drawing by drawing: what is in the architectural set, what is in the structural set, what is in the MEP set, what is excluded. Scope disputes on Pakistani residential projects almost always start as an unwritten assumption about a drawing nobody agreed to produce.
Observations are normal. Who corrects them, at whose cost, and how many rounds are included in the fee — these are the questions that decide whether an approval delay costs you money or does not.
If the answer is 'after the design is approved by you', the foundation is being designed against an assumption. On a plot that turns out to need a raft rather than isolated pad footings, that assumption is the largest single error available in the whole project.
Avenir Developments will supply its PCATP firm registration, the name of the architect who will sign your submission set, and the PEC registration of the structural engineer stamping your structural drawings, in writing, before you appoint us. We would rather you asked. If you want a broader view of the market first, we have written separately on how to choose an architect in Islamabad.
Send us your phase and plot size and we will tell you where you stand: whether possession and demarcation are in place, what the approval route looks like from where you are, and what has to happen before a drawing is worth preparing. If the answer is that your phase is not ready, we will say that.
Check My Plot on WhatsAppOur scope
You can appoint us for a single service or for the whole project. The scope below is what we typically provide; the exact deliverable list is confirmed in writing for each project before work starts.
Site and levels review, client brief, concept planning, elevation, working drawings, structural coordination based on the soil report, MEP layouts, and a coordinated DHA submission package. The objective is a house that is buildable at your budget and clears scrutiny without repeated redesign.
Planning, coordination and submissionStructural design by a registered structural engineer working from the actual bearing capacity report, and MEP layouts coordinated with the architecture so services routes, ceiling heights and shaft positions are settled on paper. This is where on-site improvisation is eliminated.
Engineering aligned with architectureSpace planning, kitchen and wardrobe design, bathroom detailing, ceiling and lighting plans, tile and flooring layouts, material boards, visualisation and execution drawings, with a bill of quantities. Resolving interiors before construction avoids relocating points and cutting into finished slabs.
Interiors resolved before executionPre-construction planning, BOQ, procurement and material approvals, grey structure, MEP first and second fix, finishing, snagging and handover, with defined quality checkpoints and weekly progress reporting. Grey structure is the completed frame and envelope before any finishes. We work on material-plus-labour and defined-scope arrangements rather than labour-only contracts.
Defined scope, checkpoints and reportingArchitecture, approvals, engineering, BOQ and construction under one accountable team. The value is not an automatic discount. It is earlier cost input at design stage, better buildability, fewer coordination gaps between drawing sets, and one party answerable when a site decision has to be made.
One coordinated and accountable teamPlot sizes
A marla is the standard Pakistani land unit: on the modern basis used across DHA allotments, 1 marla is 225 sq ft and 1 kanal is 20 marla, or 4,500 sq ft. Some older Punjab land records use a legacy marla of 272.25 sq ft, which produces a 21 per cent error if it is applied by mistake — check the basis stated on your own allotment letter before anyone calculates a covered area for you. Covered area is the built floor area on which construction cost is priced, and what it includes — basement, mumty, porch, boundary wall, external works — has to be defined before a rate means anything.
Vertical circulation eats floor area disproportionately. Stair position is the decision that makes or breaks the plan.
The size where parking, entry and the stair start competing for the same corner of the plot.
Enough width for a genuine double-aspect plan, provided setbacks are settled before the layout is drawn.
Basement viability, external works and the boundary wall become significant budget items in their own right.
Frequently created by amalgamating two adjoining plots, which is a Town Planning case and not simply a matter of owning both.
Under DHA's byelaws, adjacent residential plots in single ownership may with specific permission be amalgamated into one unit up to a maximum of four kanals, including any extra land. The case is initiated and approved through the Town Planning Directorate; an amalgamation fee and other applicable dues are payable, and the original allotment letter is surrendered for a revised one.
De-amalgamation is permitted on application with the applicable dues. But there is a consequence that owners routinely discover too late: once an amalgamated plot has been built on, it cannot be sub-divided again unless the building is dismantled. If you are buying a second plot with a view to selling one on later, settle that before you buy, not after you build. Separately, where a plot's measured size varies from its allotted size by more than 25 square yards, the variation is adjusted as Category A constructable land — which is another reason demarcation belongs before design.
Correct as at 8 September 2026. Confirm the current amalgamation policy and fees with DHA Town Planning before you act on it.
Cost
Construction cost is driven by covered area, structural requirements, specification and site conditions — not by plot size alone. The ranges below are Islamabad and Rawalpindi planning ranges intended for early budgeting, on a material-plus-labour basis and per square foot of covered area. They will move with steel, cement, labour and finishing prices.
Islamabad–Rawalpindi · as at July 2026 · material plus labour · covered-area basisExcavation, foundations, RCC frame, blockwork or brickwork, slabs, stairs, plaster, conduiting and concealed plumbing lines. No finishes. RCC is reinforced cement concrete, the structural frame of the house.
Grey structure plus standard finishing, MEP, joinery, sanitary fittings, doors and windows, paint and basic external works.
Higher-specification finishes, imported materials, HVAC, home automation, feature elevations, detailed joinery and landscape works.
Bearing capacity decides whether isolated footings are sufficient or a heavier system is needed. This is the largest variable a per-square-foot rate cannot carry.
Excavation, retaining structure, waterproofing, drainage, ventilation and access should be planned before excavation begins, not added afterwards.
Where the plot sits above or below the road or the neighbouring plots, retaining and fill become a real construction line item. Phase 4's terraced ground makes this routine rather than exceptional.
On a plot with no built neighbours there is no shared wall and no one to share the cost with. On a 1 Kanal plot this is a meaningful line, not a rounding error.
Water for curing, site power, secure material storage and longer delivery runs on developing streets belong in the BOQ rather than in 'site expenses' later.
Glazing, kitchens, wardrobes, sanitary ware, HVAC and automation frequently move a higher-specification total more than the structure itself does.
These are planning ranges, not a quotation, and no figure quoted before drawings exist is a budget. The reliable sequence is concept design, then an outline specification, then a bill of quantities.
For a rate breakdown trade by trade, and for calculators that will do the arithmetic against your own covered area, use the house construction cost hub and the construction cost calculators rather than a table on this page. Design fees are set out separately.
A rate quoted before drawings exist is a starting position, not a budget. Send your phase, plot size and whether you want a basement, and we will come back with a realistic range for your covered area and a fee structure for design, construction, or both.
Commercial plots
Commercial pockets across the DHA Islamabad phases are laid out mainly in 4 and 8 Marla plots, and they are a different design problem from a house. Parking provision, floor plate efficiency and rentability drive the brief; the elevation follows them rather than the other way round.
The questions that decide whether a commercial plot performs are settled early: how many floors the byelaws and the plot will carry, where the parking goes and what it costs you in lettable area, how vertical circulation and services are positioned so that floors can be let separately, and what a tenant in that location will actually pay for. We work through those before drawing anything, because a commercial building designed as an enlarged house is a building that does not let.
We also build 8 Marla commercial buildings on a defined-scope basis.
Applicable height, coverage and parking limits vary by plot category and must be confirmed with DHA Town Planning and Building Control at concept stage.
Overseas owners
A large share of DHA Islamabad plots are held by owners in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Remote construction works when decisions, records and accountability are structured. It fails when it depends on informal calls with several people on site, each of whom has a different account of what was agreed.
The principle is simple enough to state and hard to maintain: every decision should have one owner, one record and one approval route. In practice that means seven controls.
Named in the contract, with a defined route for approvals when they are unavailable.
Every revision issued, approved and logged, so nobody on site builds from a superseded set.
Payments tied to verified stages rather than to calendar dates or verbal progress reports.
Dated site records against a milestone checklist, sent by WhatsApp or email.
Options presented with specifications and photographs, with samples couriered where the decision warrants it.
Every change priced and approved before it is built. This is where most overseas budget overruns begin.
At concept stage, at drawing freeze, at grey structure completion, and before finishing selections are locked.
More on how remote clients work with us.
What goes wrong
These are not general cautions. Each one is specific to how DHA Islamabad administers approvals, and each one is expensive in a different way.
Most setback, height and coverage numbers that surface in a search are DHA Lahore's. DHA Islamabad and DHA Rawalpindi administer their own regulations, currently the Revised Byelaws and Regulations 2022. A setback is the distance a building must be held back from its plot boundary, and importing Lahore's figure onto an Islamabad plot is the most common reason a design comes back from scrutiny.
Bearing capacity determines foundation type, and foundation type is the largest single cost variable in the structure. Approving a design and a budget before the report exists means approving both against an assumption.
The drawings may be perfectly competent. The submission still creates avoidable scrutiny problems, and the delay lands on the owner rather than on whoever prepared them.
Two adjoining plots do not become one plot because you own both. Amalgamation is a Town Planning case with its own permission, fee and revised allotment letter. It also carries a consequence that is easy to miss: once an amalgamated plot has been built on, it cannot be sub-divided again unless the building is dismantled.
Construction begins only after the approved drawings and the inspection chart are issued, and the chart is signed off by the concerned officer at defined stages. Running ahead of a stage sign-off risks work that has to be opened up to be inspected.
Every figure quoted before concept design, an outline specification and a BOQ is a starting position. That includes ours. The reliable sequence is concept, then specification, then BOQ — and a firm that gives you a fixed per-square-foot number on the phone before seeing the plot is telling you something about how the rest of the project will be run.
Phase, plot size and where you have got to — plot only, drawings underway, or ready to build. We will come back with a feasibility note covering what the plot can realistically support, what the approval path looks like from your position, and where the cost risk sits.
Evidence
NORA Residences is Avenir's project in Islamabad, and it is the clearest illustration of how we work when we are responsible for design and delivery together rather than for drawings alone.
More usefully, here is how to test any firm's claims about DHA Islamabad experience, including ours. Ask for a plot number and the date DHA approved the drawings, because an approval date is a matter of record and cannot be improvised. Ask to see a submission set, not a render — renders are marketing and drawings are the work. Ask to speak to an owner who has been through scrutiny with that firm. And ask how many observation rounds their last three DHA submissions took. A firm that keeps its own record will answer; a firm that does not, will change the subject.
You can also work through our projects directly.
Where we say no
A page like this is normally written to say yes to everything. That is not useful to you, and it produces projects neither side enjoys. Six things we decline, and why.
There is no design worth paying for before possession, demarcation and a site plan. We would rather lose the enquiry than take a fee for drawings that cannot be submitted.
Construction and site supervision are delivered in these cities only. Elsewhere in Pakistan we provide design and the submission set your local contractor builds from. Periodic visits from another city do not produce real control over a site, and we do not sell that arrangement.
We work on material-plus-labour and defined-scope arrangements. If you are looking for a thekedar rate on labour alone, we are not the right firm and we will say so on the first call.
Our scope starts at whole-house design or construction. Small works are better served by a local contractor and we will usually say so.
Not at BOQ stage, when the drawings are done and the decision is expensive. This is the single most useful thing an architect can tell a client and the one clients hear least often.
We will not propose a redesign to enlarge our own scope. If the approved set is sound, it is the set we build from.
Questions
DHA Islamabad–Rawalpindi comprises Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, Phase 4, Phase 5 and Phase 6, together with DHA Valley, which is Phase 7, DHA Gandhara, which is Phase 9, and DHA Margalla Orchards, which is Phase 10. DHA Margalla Enclave is a separate CDA–DHA joint venture scheme rather than a numbered phase. There is no DHA Phase 8 Islamabad, and DHA Valley is not a phase separate from Phase 7 — both errors appear widely online. Phase designations and sector status change, so confirm your own plot's position with DHA's Town Planning and Building Control directorate. Correct as at 8 September 2026.
No. DHA Islamabad and DHA Rawalpindi administer their own regulations, currently the DHA Islamabad and DHA Rawalpindi Revised Byelaws and Regulations 2022, through the Town Planning and Building Control directorate. Most setback, height and coverage figures found through a general search refer to DHA Lahore and should not be applied to an Islamabad plot. Confirm the limits for your plot category with DHA Islamabad–Rawalpindi at concept stage rather than at submission.
Both. Avenir Developments delivers architecture, interior design, construction and Design + Build in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, including DHA Islamabad, and maintains an office in Islamabad at 101 Luxus Mall, Gulberg Greens. Construction and site supervision are provided in Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi only; elsewhere in Pakistan Avenir provides design and the approval submission set for a local contractor to build from.
Yes. A soil bearing capacity report forms part of the drawing submission in DHA Islamabad–Rawalpindi, and it also determines your foundation design. It is not a formality: whether your plot needs isolated pad footings or a heavier foundation system changes the structural budget materially. Commissioning it before the concept is finalised is the cheaper sequence.
Under DHA's byelaws, adjacent residential plots in single ownership may with specific permission be amalgamated into a single unit up to a maximum of four kanals, including any extra land. The case is initiated and approved through the Town Planning Directorate, an amalgamation fee and other applicable dues are payable, and the original allotment letter is surrendered for a revised one. De-amalgamation is permitted on application with the applicable dues — but an amalgamated plot that has been built on cannot be sub-divided unless the building is dismantled. Confirm the current position with DHA before you buy the second plot.
Yes, and this is checkable before you appoint anyone. Architects and structural engineers should be selected from DHA's registered lists, and DHA's byelaws require the structural engineer to hold PEC registration with a minimum qualification of MSc Structures and to sit on the DHA Islamabad and DHA Rawalpindi panel. Drawings prepared by professionals outside those lists create avoidable scrutiny problems. Ask any firm you are considering, including this one, for the registration under which your structural drawings will be stamped.
As at July 2026, planning ranges across Islamabad and Rawalpindi run at roughly PKR 2,800–3,500+ per sq ft of covered area for grey structure, and roughly PKR 7,000–8,800+ per sq ft for standard turnkey construction, on a material-plus-labour basis. Higher-specification builds run above that. Your own figure depends on covered area, whether you build a basement, foundation type after the soil report, specification level, MEP systems and site conditions. These are planning ranges for early budgeting, not a quotation. A reliable number comes from concept design, an outline specification and a BOQ.
Yes. For suitable projects in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Avenir provides architecture, approvals, engineering, BOQ, construction, interiors and handover under one agreement, with online design reviews, digital drawing approvals, milestone-linked payments, weekly photographic reporting, documented material approvals and a written variation record. You can also appoint Avenir for design only, or for construction only where approved drawings already exist. Scope and price are confirmed in writing before work starts.
Next step
Whichever stage you are at, the first useful conversation is about your plot rather than about a design. Tell us your phase and plot size and we will take it from there.
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