Urban renewal, readjustment and reclamation
DHAKA need not be in the desperation it is now, where perpetual traffic jams, and flooding of roads are the order of the day. It need not be a polluted city littered with buildings and construction sites, with inadequate urban facilities and absence of leisure and recreation amenities. The on-and-off demolishing of businesses along roads and rivers, the sheer desperation and hopelessness that have engulfed our urban existence in Dhaka can be reversed. Khaled Ashraf (Catalysis for a New Dhaka, Daily Star, November 1) has written about our urbanism and suggested innovative solutions.
Sadly too much investment is being made without direction or vision. Developers and individuals are building everywhere. The process is the same -- demolish the building, cut all trees, build a luxurious(!) modern apartment or shopping mall on the whole plot, or buy a piece of land, fill it up and build. The result is a decaying of the environment.
Most cities, particularly Asian cities, are in a constant state of change. Shaping them to meet the ever- expanding needs is extremely challenging. It needs the attention, institutions and skills of the highest magnitude. Problems cannot be solved through directives, even when they come from the top executive. The underlying problems that lead to the crisis have to be addressed institutionally and innovatively.
Our planning system lacks the vision, professionalism, forward planning techniques and the procedures to face the challenge of urbanism. We lack the urban governance that incorporates coordination and participation and forward planning, and techniques for urban renewal and redevelopment.
The so-called massive development in Dhaka, Chittagong and other cities is through a profit sharing agreement between the land-owner and the developer. In the urban periphery, powerful real estate companies consolidate land (often forcefully), change its nature and sell for profit in the most unethical and environmentally unsustainable manner. The government has no vision for development of these areas, or control over the activities of unscrupulous developers. It gives no support or direction to the rapidly increasing individual expansion. Projects initiated by the government often lack collective vision for the community or the city.
Techniques such as urban renewal, plot boundary readjustment and land reclamation will have to be established as accepted practices for redevelopment of urban areas. Renewal and reclamation are happening by default, not as a conscious effort. Thus, the opportunities for urban excellence and sustainability are lost.
Consider the redevelopment of any formal or spontaneously developed traditional area. Say Dhanmandi and Shantinagar in Dhaka or Nasirabad Housing Society and Jamal Khan in Chittagong. Each low-rise, low-density building is being demolished and replaced by a high-rise, multi-family apartment. Each action is an isolated case, with no overall development plan. Each plot now houses 20, 30 or 40 families in place of 2, 3 or 6. The trees and all the open spaces have gone. This is being repeated plot after plot after plot across the whole city. How will any area or the city survive?
Where are the playgrounds, libraries, schools, health centers, NH shops, drainage channels, open areas for all the additional people who will become residents of the area? Why won't roads be perpetually clogged when children have to travel to a school, which is 10 km or more away? Why won't the roads get flooded after the slightest downpour? Instead of creating additional open spaces and playgrounds why must a proposal suddenly come from influential quarters to modernise and develop the open Dhanmandi playground into a high-class club? What is the institutional process for making these proposals and decisions?
Residential areas like Dhanmandi or Panchlaish in Chittagong had been developed by the government in the late '50s. The planning authority should have come up with an overall redevelopment plan when the need for change was evident. The government made no such move, while developers made, and continue to make, deals with owners.
We still have scope to arrest further degeneration. All government owned plots, instead of being allotted to the influential, may be used in the public realm -- open spaces, playgrounds, pools, kids' corner, quiet wooded corners for the elderly, community library and other such leisure areas, and also for neighbourhood businesses such as tailor shops, laundries, small eateries etc. A green tax may be imposed on the owners of plots/buildings for creating non-profit amenity spaces. Other facilities may be established by choice or even sponsored by entrepreneurs.
In older areas, a redevelopment plan can be prepared with participation of land-owners. Plot boundaries can be readjusted to make allowance for roads, footpaths, open spaces and urban amenities, as required. Commercial spaces may be incorporated to recoup development costs. Innovative redevelopment plans can be made, retaining existing pockets of development. This will be a winwin situation for all; for the landowner because he will obtain land in a planned area, for the developer because he can still build and make profits, for the residents and the community because there will be amenities for them, and for the city because there will be a sustainable and creative patch in its domain.
In the urban fringe and in the low-lying areas, real estate developers reclaim land indiscriminately. Reclamation should be a government function, to be done in an ecologically and environmentally tested way. Provisions for retaining a certain percent as retention ponds or creating large water bodies may be made. Thus, reclamation may be used as a tool for creating sustainable areas along rivers and in low-lying areas.
With a transparent and participatory planning process public trust may be instilled to voluntarily surrender land for the application of such techniques for redevelopment of areas. The process may take time, but it is not impossible. We urge the government to formulate the legislations and create the institutions to undertake innovative urban redevelopment schemes to achieve greater social and ecological balance in our cities, in place of absolute profit making only.
If we are to make Dhaka, Chittagong or any other city livable, the current building expansion phenomenon has to be halted immediately and urban development rethought. We can make our cities places where one chooses to reside, where economic interests of the city, efficiency of business, the aspirations of the individual, collective rights of residents and dreams of the city and country are met.
It is in this context that the government has to play a proactive and supportive role -- one with vision and professionalism. The development authorities have marginally met the expectations of urban dwellers. How about having a "Redevelopment Authority," which can change the outcome of each investment from mere self-interest and profit making to a more shared vision of convenience, community interest and sustainability.
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