Sustainable development zones to end urban sprawl
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The concept of sustainable development zones has been mooted to help booming cities such as Kochi handle their urban growth problems. SHYAMA RAJAGOPAL presents the details.
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The concept of sustainable development zones (SDZs), which will be better equipped to accommodate new development and population increase and have adequate infrastructure to back growth, has been mooted by Jaigopal G. Rao, architect and Chairman of a Technical Advisory Group on Urban Planning for the State.
Mr. Rao, who has been promoting ecologically sustainable buildings and infrastructure for the past 20 years, says the growth of cities to nearby suburbs is inevitable in the present form of development. As the city spreads, so do the traffic of people and vehicles, setting the tone for urban sprawl. This has happened when Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai grew as metropolises. So much so that commuting from one end of Delhi or Mumbai to the other is tiresome. When such travel becomes part of daily life, the charm of living in a big city dissipates.
This is happening to all small cities in the country. Bangalore has grown into a big city and Kochi is following suit. The world over, urban planning has made an about-turn. As Mr. Rao puts it, the three big evils — increasing automobile usage, daily commuting distances and the urban sprawl — have to be minimised. The crux of urban planning lies in making cities a welcome space and not an exasperating experience of going through a dense and unfriendly concrete jungle.
When designing new cities, politicians and planning authorities need to adhere to these basics so that the city will be able to take in new developments for a better tomorrow, Mr. Rao says. The SDZs is a land-use-cum-financial model for promoting balanced growth. A city or a town may be divided into a number of such zones, depending on the expected investment opportunity, present land use, population density and carrying capacity of the land.
He says a typical SDZ can be optimally designed to take a population increase of 12,000 people in 20 years.
Activity zones
Dividing each SDZ into further zones based on activity is the next step in planning. In a case study done by Mr. Rao, a technical and financial model was prepared based on an area of 3.1 sq.km in the Kochi Corporation, including Kadavanthara and Chilavannoor.
The idea is to simplify town planning procedures, he said. A town can be divided into small modules and infrastructure such as water and electricity supply for the population in the area needed to be taken care of. There also needs to be an idea about the number of vehicles coming in and going out of this module. A standard needs to be developed for a module.
The idea is to provide an inner city development focus and not to spread out development. Mr. Rao calls the main area of an SDZ as the High Density Pedestrianised Core, where about 60 per cent of the people are involved in daily activities such as going to work, going to school, shopping for essentials, everyday essential services, recreation and sports and cultural activities, all of which will be within a walking distance of 500 m. This area will have a high floor-area ratio of 5 with coverage of less than 25 per cent. Hence, it will have large open areas and playgrounds within this half-a-kilometre distance.
There will be no automobiles in the area — only cycles and tricycles for goods, the disabled and the elderly. Parking facilities will be provided on the periphery.
Mr. Rao suggests that top infrastructure be provided in the core area with good road links from the main road and mass rapid transport lines. The local authority can sell the developed land in the high-density area to builders to develop mid- and high-end housing and mixed-use facilities. The local body can meet cost of purchase of land for housing for economically weaker sections, for service areas such as solid and liquid waste management, rainwater storage and other development.
Economically weaker sections need to find accommodation, recreation and education near their workplaces.
Hence, a built-up area of an average 75 sq.ft a person should be planned at a FAR of 2 as the economic weaker section (EWS) zone.
A no-development zone (NDZ) has been proposed to conserve natural heritage features such as forests, wetlands, beaches, coastal areas, paddy fields, rivers, lakes and ponds. Private owners of such areas can be given compensation for transfer of the development.
Service areas
Land for service areas is important as there need to be space for footpaths, streetlights, storm-water lines, water tanks, pump houses, water supply main lines, decentralised solid waste, sewage and liquid waste treatment areas and buffer zones for unavoidable hazardous industries or chemical storage and transfer.
Parks, playgrounds and community open spaces can be in and around the high-density core.
After land is reserved for developing infrastructure, the rest of the SDZ can be demarcated as a low development zone (LDZ) with a FAR of 1 and less than 33 per cent coverage. These areas can have villas, automobile workshops and other small industries which need land. Earthy building should be encouraged with own solid- and liquid-waste treatment facilities.
For transportation, feeder buses will connect all parts of the SDZ to the high-density core from where mass transit lines or buses will take people to distant places.
Mr. Rao says that in an existing city, if three or four wards, which have a proper mass transit system and a population of 8,000 each are combined together and declared a SDZ, it can arrest urban sprawl, commuting distances and automobile proliferation. Life within the core area will be child- and elderly-friendly and pollution-free. Besides, money is not wasted in frequent and repeated new road or road widening schemes.
Mr. Rao believes that the Rs. 25,000 crore that Kerala gets as remittances from abroad can be channelled by the government in a proper manner to improve infrastructure. The SDZs will generate employment. One can start by declaring small towns as SDZs to help in decentralised growth. Local bodies will be able to plan their own SDZ and they can even compete with one another to attract investment in their SDZ.
As high FAR will be consolidated and auctioned only by local bodies, private land speculators will have to content with low FAR lands. This will arrest land price speculation considerably, Mr. Rao says.
Simple planning
Usually, town planning takes up detailed and elaborate planning for an area using jargon that people do not understand, he says. These can be simplified by making things friendlier to people in a language that they understand, he added.
The Town Planning authorities have land use instruments which are not being effectively used. These tools need to be implemented for sustainable growth.
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