Fixing Kerala Urban Planning's broken bones!

Whenever there is a discussion or workshop on urban planning issues, we realize that almost all the people in the know of things have a grasp of “what is” to be done! Invariably, if we dig deeper, this clarity vanishes. We notice huge gaps in the thinking, or sheer fallacy of the ideas extolled so elaborately, and huge stories purposefully left untold.

New items and stumbling blocks crop up in the discussions, 'malayali psyche', 'our general attitude', 'political will', our resistance to tolls, our opposition to environmental exploitation, 'our consumer culture' etc. Most of them are very intangible.

Soon, all those who are concerned about the matter just for that event or that day would go on with their lives from there on. Some others leave with a sense of dejection. The planning department must carry on and do what is possible under the given difficult conditions.

Our cities are hungry for change, but frankly, no one knows how that is to happen!

There are various ways the arguments for a better city can be cited. Let us not presume a physical solution to start with. Let the physicality emerge from true and authentic forces of peoples will and desire. By 'True forces', I mean, a cumulative packaging of the desire of the Entire people. A process that is reflective of the democratic society and embedded within the Law of the land.

On closer study, it seems that certain law making needs to be done to support a genuine process of decision making which can be termed effective urban management. The invisible thread that bind us all together is the law of the land.

What are the basic premises required to bring about any cohesive, comprehensive, visionary physical change to the existing city?

1. Setting the development agenda democratically
2. Fixing responsibility of making the Urban Area Development Plan.
3. Creating a mechanism to seek quality technical (physical and financial) solutions/inputs regarding city design
4. Strategize the method to convert private land to public use with minimal conflict
5. Enabling a legally embedded, yet, quick grievance redressal system
6. Co-ordination of implementation

We have serious lacunae in each of these spheres and I could explain why we need the support of better law-making to enable each of these. Our cities are still livable simply because such urban issues have only recently started creating small temporary nuisances, and also because the underlying older pattern of urban design (unintended though!) was very very accommodative to stress

1. Setting the development agenda democratically:

Without this, nothing holds water in our democratic society. Yet, we have no system to collect the will of the people on such a crucial matter. The current system is that once a Development Plan is prepared, it shall be put up in the public domain for people to comment on for a certain duration, two months. So, the role of the civil society is limited to responding to a certain design option. Mostly such comments would be from persons who are immediately affected by some serious trouble like their land being marked as a public park! (This could be worse thing to happen to a citizen who happened to fall under the green pen of the planner.) Such comments are heard and sometimes responded to too.

However, that is still far cry from being able to set our own development agenda as a citizenry. Electing our local councilor is the nearest we are at the moment to this role and that narrative is clouded by a million other political maneuvers. 

One drastic revision needed here is that, the aspirations of the stakeholders have to be collected prior to the preparation of the design solution. There are many ways and examples of how this can be done. Individuals, associations, institutions, political parties etc should be able to respond to various tailor-made stimuli. This process has to rest within our legal rights. Law making exercise number 1. This exercise should end in the preparation of a detailed development agenda that is at once a conceptual vision document, as well as a detailed design brief for an agency or group of agencies that is to provide the next stage of the exercise. This Vision Document must be published and whetted by the responsible agency.

 

2. Fixing responsibility of making the Urban Area Development Plan:

Delineation of the extent of an urban area is critical task. Ecological, Demographic and Administrative concerns should be the primary basis on which this is done. As multiple Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) would be covered together, Joint Town Planning Committees would have to be set-up to monitor the same. Kochi City Region has done this and can be used a precedent or template for future use. In case of larger agglomerations, Metropolitan Planning Committee (MPC) would have to be put in place. This is what is still missing in the case of Kochi City Region. Case for law-making 2. 

However, political energies are focused on revival of Development Authorities, something that is totally unconstitutional in the aftermath of the 73^rd and 74^th Amendments to the Constitution. Setting up of the processes and institutions required for good governance is the first step forward. In a mad rush to show dramatic short term results, no government should scuttle the overall intend of the decentralization in civic governance.

So, our vision document is to be initiated by this MPC. Let us see who they are and how they would deliver a city of promise.

3. Creating a mechanism to seek quality technical (physical and financial) solutions/inputs regarding city design

The Metropolitan Commisioner (CEO) for the MPC who reports to the LSGD Minister and the Chief Minister directly, would be an IAS officer and would head four teams; Planning, Engineering, Finance and Administration. Planning, is to be headed by a Chief Planner. This is the script already in place and awaiting implementation.

But, then, where would technical help come in from? Quality technical input would be needed. How does this team hire an external consultant? Or would they do all the tasks in-house? Using a building construction simile, will land up with PWD type government buildings as against the possibility of great design solutions from architects?

What we are seeking is quality urban design inputs and for that the system must be able to hire quality professional inputs in a manner befitting the urgency and loftiness of the purpose. The town planning department has a central role in the process. I would strongly advocate that the TPD adopt a collaborative work culture in such cases. Multiple agencies and competencies are required to accomplish a task of such magnitude. It is imperative that terms and mechanisms of engagement with various professional agencies by the Town planning Department be put in place. Case for law making number 3.

 

The vision to such a strategy should be initiated by the CEO of the MPC. If such inputs are not taken, the Plans prepared would be very much the same old land-use plans which recommend what uses cannot happen in a certain place. A lot of new roads drawn in wide sweeping lines taking fancy titles like ring, radial and concentric and what not. A huge backlog of proposed Town Planning Schemes (DTPS) would be created. Tired Town Planners would be asked to work like horses doing both DTP schemes as well as clearing individual building permits and scrutinizing building set-backs!

Professional input can bring about many changes in the methodology, the end product, the nature of the development Plans, add built-in flexibility, use more personnel to deliver the whole task as a single purpose, use different software for input, feedback, analysis, constant up-gradation, better projectisation and dove-tailing with financial systems. etc. Our cities deserve such a break.

This is the crux of the argument for better cities.

 4. Strategize the method to convert private land to public use with minimal conflict:

Any development Plan in Kerala would run into the issue of taking over private land for public purpose. A lot of this cumbersome and hurtful process is done using the draconian Land Acquisition Act which in effect means, taking land away forcefully using the might of the Law. Even as we accept that LA is inevitable in some context and that, that issue is being addressed by the Central Government through legislative reforms in that particular Act itself, let us not deny that for effective urban land release and assemblage, we have better tools like TDR, Accommodation reservation etc.

To get TDR to function effectively, some supporting conditions are also needed to be put up. Land Pooling Act or Land Reconstitution Act is enabled in some States like Gujarat since 1947. This enables a system which makes the process of land reassembly happen in a transparent and legal manner while permitting active and profitable benefits to the participants in it. How well this system works also depends on how aware and demanding the public is and also how transparent the actual conduct of the process is! But, having this Act in place is crucial, the Land Pooling Act! Law making task number 4.

Just putting the Act in place doesn't ensure speedy assembling of land. There are many disputes and conflicts and they too are to be addressed in a democratic society if issues are to be sorted out reasonably fast.

5. Enabling a legally embedded, yet, quick grievance redressal system

Grievance redressal in urban land issues is done by the Land Tribunal in Gujarat again. Setting up a legal redressal system like the Land Tribunal for fast-tracking of land related disputes would ease the task and pressure on Metropolitan Commissioner's office. Law making task number 5.

One can very well imagine the potential for chaos and agitation in that office premise after any project plan is unveiled in case no genuine legal mechanism specific to the task is in place. People would rush to civil courts and there could be a stay on each and every project. Urban projects can't work in piece-meal packages and would need wholesome approval for all ends to tie up together.

 6. Co-ordination of implementation

Compared to most of the earlier tasks that appear formidable, I would say that all the five earlier hurdles were the easier ones when compared to this one. Everyone knows this simple message, yet, how come none has been able to ensure that urban management be unified in purpose?

We don't start urban management one fine day, that's why!

There are existing systems and entrenched traits that run this cumbersome job. No one wants to feel less important the next day. Yet, co-ordination is a need.

Unified Transport Authority is being discussed as being mandated by the Central Government for Metropolitan regions. Even when that is achieved, we have only unified the transportation aspects within itself! Transportation will then have to be unified with all other systems! No one is sure what those systems are in first place.

A lot of it would ride on what the design goal is for each sub-project and a method/ institutional mechanism for delivery of design goals would have to be put in place. This task for the Metropolitan Commissioner to unravel.

AD-HOC CITY: KOCHI

In Kochi, when a certain urban issue crops up, a solution is discussed in the media and then, it is projectised. Some implementing agency is either identified or one is created for it and the project materializes on the city. How does this happen? Why is it that we are not adding each project on the city keeping in mind a larger picture towards which each of these projects will take us? That's because, we are an ad-hoc city! One, we don't have a larger picture and two, this condition allows many energies to twist the system to suit the prevailing public mood.

Why are we afraid to put in an institutional mechanism to manage our city? Why does adhoc-ism prevail in urban management?

One day, someone said a Metro was the answer to all our problems, then, all the media told us that Metro would solve all our woes and we created a Kochi Metro Rail Limited to do it for us. The need for a Multi-modal Terminal at Vyttila came up and the Vyttila Mobility Hub was created. GIDA was created! Is this pattern good from governance point of view? What does our Town Planning Department do if all these ad-hoc entities tug at our urbanization in different directions?

If one really dig deep to understand how these entities operate on the city, we notice that the system of command that is required for it is not put in place. There are little lines that remain unconnected. This disconnect can be bridged only by political power, by the elected representatives. These tiny bridges can only be done in the legislative space.

So, the real power rests with the political parties and that’s where all these energies need to focus to get things done their way. The absence of a transparent, legible, answerable system of civic governance thus ensures that political power is the only means to get things done in an otherwise chaotic mechanism.

How does this tweaking the system work? First you work within any of these institutions and then get the media involved to spread the story. Use this as leverage and get some political backing to push your agenda. If the result is tangible and beneficial to those who work in its favour, then you have success.

The sad part is that, this is the only way you can do good work for the city too, with well meaning and non-corrupt ideas. Also, this is only way you can do any work whose sole intention is private profiteering or extreme ideas of looting public assets.

The system is like a true wildlife saga. Only the fittest survive. There is no moral dilemma here, the system is open to one and all. Do you have the courage to work it?

Managing Urbanism as a Social Resource

We have over the years come to understand that urban planing is a physical planning exercise done in the realm of civic governance by technical people who are essentially civil engineers/ statisticians additionally qualified as town planners. My argument is that city spaces are more than statistical projections and infrastructural engineering. This is in no way to reduce the importance of these inputs in managing urbanization.

Like in architecture where structural engineering and services' engineering are inherent in the project, the architectural expression, which is the effective interface of the building with the user-group (direct and indirect) is a discipline largely conceived and managed by the architect, who is the centrally responsible professional. Likewise, it is the Urban Designer who needs to play the central role in managing city/urban structure and urban places.

In the early days of architecture as an independent profession, the architect was considered a cosmetic surgeon or a make-up artist who added a touch of “luxurious” elegance on to the 'engineering' produce of the engineer who designed the building. We have now moved ahead in the field of architecture. Now, Town Planners consider Urban Designers akin to what the engineer thought the architect was, a cosmetic input who does the paving of footpaths, and the like! An awakening is to happen about the role of the Urban Designer in the task of city design. City design is much more than town planning. Town planning in itself is an inadequate response from the civil society in terms of harnessing the social opportunity of managing urbanism. We need urban design of cities to let that happen! This has happened in many European cities and would soon be needed here too, given the rapid deterioration of our urban areas and the lost social opportunities that it is causing.

Shape and pattern of urban development is more so, a reflection of political power. Cities have some basic DNA characteristics which sometimes rest in their geography, or their social order, or their cultural belief, or various other layers. Take the case of hill towns or in towns that exist below the sea-level and we notice that the predominant qualifier of its urban structure is the primary layer of its geography. Whereas, look at Old Delhi and we see that it is the Ruler and his fortification that creates the central axial spine for the town's structure. In Madurai, it is the Meenakshi Temple and the concentric circum-ambulatory paths that mark cultural rituals and orders the town. So towns are certainly not, totally a mobilization by civic administration, they are a reflection of its people and the way the people conduct their lives in that context.

Here I must clarify that the term “urbanization” is being used not in a physical sense, but rather as a densification of social transactions in a region, a coming together of people towards mutual interdependence in a scale that enables equal opportunity, enterprise and some amount of homogenous anonymity. A scale that affords, even Arts to flourish!

Kerala, however has its own narrative for urbanism. We have had a heady mix of un-supportive traits that ran against that very idea of urbanization. A splintered and fractured social order, an ecology that helped sustain extremely small social groups in very small territories, no dramatic social mobilization, a matrilineal social order that hinged on undivided agrarian land resource, etc. However, trade and contact with global trade lines injected some forces that resulted in urban groupings.

Years on, we moved into democratic norms, reinvented our aspirations and slowly have begun to shed social inhibitions and have begun to yearn to be socially urbanized. Now, its the turn to set the physical urban context for that to occur in. Does the urban setting create the social bonding or does the social bonding bring about the urban setting?

Well, it works both ways. Its a two way street and we could accelerate the process if we walk from both ends towards each other. This is precisely where we miss the bus if we simply let the task be handled by the town planners in their bureaucratic ways.

How does one create urban settings for better social networking to happen? We need to pro-actively promote urban projects that reduce social distances. These projects are value driven even at the stage where they are conceived. So, what is good Urban Design in the Kerala context?

Cities should be LIVEABALE, SUSTAINABLE and PRODUCTIVE.

Urban Design should mean both the process and the resultant product of creating urban settings/ places.

This would mean that we operate at different scales.

• On the whole of Kerala
• On a City scale
• On place making scale (CBD/ neighborhood scale)
• Street scale or site planning scale

Each of these scales calls for a different strategy and different terms of engagement with the process of governance. Of the four scales mentioned, let us look at the City scale and the next, place-making scale for further study.

On a city scale, urban design concerns itself with integrating liveablity of its citizen with the sustainability of the environmental context through means of city design. An urban structure is about the relationship between built-mass, open spaces, the water system, movement paths/ corridors, urban ecology, people and their activities and the services that go into keeping the whole system working. At this scale, it is about distribution of built-densities, their various functional characteristics, and efficient and effective movement of people and goods/ services. Its success depends on the quality of life it provides to the people who live, work and use the city for growth and recreation. It is thus about the experience of the city by the people.

On a place making scale: That is a neighborhood scale, a planning division scale, the detailing of a Central Business District (CBD), a combined area of around 3 or 4 wards of a Municipal Corporation etc. Here, built mass can be created based on the recommendations in the Master Plan or on the basis of the approved density as per the city level plan. The Regional Floor Area Ratio (F.A.R) can be distributed to achieve the desired urban form and open space network. Road widening schemes, open space creation, parking distribution, pedestrian and vehicular circulation patterns etc can be done as urban design projects.

In terms of user benefits, urban design delivers maximum when it operates at this scale.

Conceiving urban projects for Cities:

The prevailing mood in Kerala is about bringing in projects that would use large funds and deliver large doses of urban 'infrastructure'. Move large volumes of trucks, containers and freight! What is it that we produce in Kerala that we so desperately want to move in large volumes and so fast?

Take Cochin for example, is our port gearing up at such pace and investment to increase our exports or increase our imports? Are we positioning our state as a conduit into the country for finished goods from abroad? What is the spine of our 'development' thrust?

Or rather in our context of discussion, how are our urban areas being positioned as centres of productivity? What is our growth engine? IT Parks? Food processing industry including spices? Tourism? Container logistics? Garments?

Okay, all of them! Now, how can we re-look at our cities to see what they need to become to help the citizen meet the five growth engines' needs? Our urban vision needs to reflect these aspirations in a methodical manner.

Bring on board the major players of each of such industry and seek out their needs as to generate a program for the city's physical growth plans. Get inputs from the Councilors, Town Planning Department, urban services agencies, residents' associations, City Police et al. The nature of each input is of a different order and it is then, the task of Urban Design to draw inputs from all such and other stakeholders of the city and derive an urban program for the city. The City scale urban design needs to happen out of such deliberations.

I must say here that the task of Urban Design as mentioned above, is not an exclusive territory of the Urban Designer. It is a multidisciplinary effort that needs to be held together by the central role an urban designer can and should play.

Managing Smaller Urban Centres in Kerala:

Another major aspect of Kerala's urban pattern is the liberally spread urban centres of various scales almost evenly distributed across the State. It is tragic that such a tremendous social opportunity is being squandered away by our inability to provide location/ context specific development plans for each of these centres. Places like Perumbavoor, Cherthala, Vaikom etc can give urban centres a run for their worth in terms of the quality of life on offer. But letting them behind as appendages to urban centres like Cochin is a sinful waste of social opportunity.

Place like that need an Urban Design Vision Plan. There are professionals capable of doing such tasks here in Kerala and we should encourage our system to absorb their caliber for the benefit of us all.

Urban Centres are social opportunities and they need to be harnessed with the help of effective Urban Design strategy.