Certain aspects of the present disclosure provide techniques for managing resources utilized for enhanced physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) transmissions. According to certain aspects, a method is provided for wireless communications which may be performed, for example, by a user equipment (UE). The method generally includes receiving signaling indicating a set of time and frequency resources in one or more subframes allocated for an enhanced physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), receiving a downlink transmission in a subframe, making a determination to monitor for the enhanced PDCCH in the subframe based on the signaling, and decoding the enhanced PDCCH transmitted using the set of time and frequency resources in the subframe, in response to the determination.