India has seen a progressive shift to low-income housing models with a broader policy context approach over the years. This enabling strategy seeks to adopt market-logic and neoliberal ideologies with an emphasis on reforming housing policies, institutions, and regulations to allow the housing markets to function efficiently. As key player, the architecture profession has taken precedence in the development of affordable living and plays an important role in the growth of built environments. Several housing schemes present an opportune moment to provide universal standards of decency in providing quality living to large numbers of marginalized populations. The primary goals of this research project is to understand the current housing challenges in Indian context and to understand the intent of the policies. Though new policies aim to create a conducive environment and foster more inclusive, sustainable measures in affordable housing. Despite the changes, there is a huge gap between the notion and process of architecture and design, especially in terms of user-centric design quality with respect to housing layout. This study is basically focusing on low-income housing in Tamil Nadu and an attempt to assess the effect of architectural design components based on the perceptions of residents. Three different low-income housing sites with high-rise structures from different localities within Chennai were chosen for the study. A model matrix with design variables was adapted to the Chennai context and a Likert scale survey tool to gauge users’ satisfaction levels was devised. This research is part of VIT-UTM matching grant titled “Best model of affordable housing design for low-income group (LIG): Case study of Chennai, India and Johor, Malaysia” and this paper is the first phase of our research on 3 case studies focusing low-income group (LIG) housing schemes in Chennai.