Chennai Metropolitan Area spreads over 1189 square kilometers. The trend of its growth is very short and steep. The rapid developments increase the density of population and utilize urban land in a large scale. Land is the basic need for any type of development and it becomes a scarce commodity. So pre-planning of the land use is necessary. Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority categories the urban land into various zones and advocates the planned way of development. Later  on based on the request a reclassification scheme is introduced to change the use of urban land. To assess the directed land use development in Chennai Metropolitan Area, a study is conducted along the four major arterials on few selected locations. The physical developments in selected locations are compared with the land use maps. From the study it is concluded that the physical development follow the directed pattern with minor deviation.

Key words: Madras Metropolitan Development Authority, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, Development
Control Rule, Detailed Development Plan