Two recent op-eds in Dhaka Tribune by Dwitiya Jawher Neethi and MushfiqueWadud, which are substantially related to urban life of megacity Dhaka, are the main impetus of this write-up.
Such write-ups have little to deliver to ameliorate the urban life of Dhaka unless there is a serious level of overhauling of the urban governance that involves stronger political determination, greater sociopolitical consensus and a substantial flow of funds.
An account of urban planning for Dhaka city
Historically, the city of Dhaka enjoyed a steady growth initially as a district town, later as a provincial city until its current growth spurt which started when Dhaka became the capital of independent Bangladesh.
If we look back at the immediate aftermath of our independence, we will see that nothing has been done to guide the urban development of the newly commissioned capital of the country. There was “Dacca Master Plan of 1959” under the auspices of the then Dacca Improvement Trust (DIT).
The next effort to guide and control the development of Dhaka city was the Dhaka Metropolitan Area Integrated Urban Development Plan (DMAIUDP). The project was adopted in 1980 and the report was finalised in 1981. The main objective of DMAIUDP was to provide a long term growth strategy for urban expansion of greater Dhaka.
Unlike the rigid master plan of 1959, this project considered several growth options for Dhaka through multiple stages of evaluation, acknowledged that flooding and drainage are major problems of any expansion of Dhaka and proposed several recommendations.
Recommendations of the project included peripheral growths in Mirpur, Dhanmondi and Mohammadpur by small scale land filling, mounding and building on piles/posts.
It also recommended northern expansion towards Savar-Tongi-Joydevpur using the prevailing flood free highlands supported by major highways. However, detailed (plot level) land use planning related proposals were not entertained in DMAIUDP.
The political turmoil following the assassination of President Ziaur Rahman in 1981 halted further progress of this project and apparently the report remained unpublished. Consequently, the city continued its spontaneous growth spurt without any regulation.
The growth mainly took place along the northern corridor as the eastern and western fringe areas are low and usually get inundated during the monsoon seasons. The unprecedented flood of 1988 forced the government to build the western embankment to protect the Narayanganj, Demra and Jatrabari localities of greater Dhaka.
This suddenly created an opportunity for development in low-lying lands within the embankment. Being very close to the city, wherever the embankment made the lands free of flooding, land value shot up and rapid development started in these areas.
Intensive high-density and spontaneous development, mainly initiated by powerful private developers, took place in areas closer to the major thoroughfare where urban infrastructure and services were available in a better scale.
Thus under a flimsy layer of regulations, massive urban expansion, especially industrial infrastructure growths, started in these western low lying areas. During the same period northern expansion continued, while the eastern fringe lacked an equal growth spurt as it remained unprotected from flood.
After the failure of DMAIUDP, a 20-year-long mega city plan was again re-initiated in 1993 in the name of Dhaka Metropolitan Development Planning (DMDP). The plan started its journey in 1995 and had three components: structure plan, urban area plan and Detailed Area Plan (DAP).
Crucial parts of DMDP based on the recommendations of DMAIUDP. In the DMDP package, “structure plan” is the strategic or macro level planning to formulate development and growth strategies, “urban area plan” is interim urban management plan until DAP takes place and DAP is the detailed level planning.
Though the DAP was supposed to be commissioned in 2005, it actually got adopted in 2010. As spelled out in the DMDP structure plan, the DAPs were to be prepared in stages – first for those areas where the pressure for growth was intense, and gradually move to areas where the pressure was low.
Detailed Area Plan project area was divided into five groups and 11 locations on the basis of geographical location and settlement pattern.
Although there has been a substantial delay and coordination failure in the drafting of DAP, to improve the city life of Dhaka, some very good proposals were made at the structure plan level.
For example: (i) densification of existing built-up areas, (ii) accelerating development within existing fringe areas, (iii) development of planned new areas, (iv) development of dispersed new satellite towns at flood-free locations, (v) gradual dispersal of commercial activities to existing suburbs and new growth areas, (vi) augmenting, identifying and securing sites for major recreational uses and (vii) developing long term primary road network and national link commuter rail network.
There are subsequent implementation policies, which have been formulated in the DAP. Unfortunately, most of the policies of DAP have not been implemented with only one year left of its expiry. Now it can be projected that DAP will also be a failure or at least will not fulfil its time obligation.
Reasons behind failure
The reasons behind the failure of DAP are multifold and diverse: type of urban governance, red tape dilemma, influence of financial corruptions and so on are all to be equally blamed. But the severity of urban governance issue is overarching.
For example, urban transportation is the core and integrated component of urban land use planning, but RAJUK, which is vested with preparing the master plan of the city as per the Town Improvement Act 1953, is not entitled to deal with transportation planning.
Without considering the fact that urban transportation planning is intricately and integrally related with urban land use planning, this vital component of the plan has been taken away from RAJUK and has been vested with DTCA (Dhaka Transport Co-ordination Authority).
Thus under the current situation, RAJUK is an organisation for town planning without the responsibility of transportation planning, and at the same time, the DTCA is an organisation for transportation planning without the responsibility of town planning.
The result, as expected, is disastrous. Moreover, the problem of RAJUK being the planning authority and, at the same time, land developer itself is a big issue affecting land use planning and policies.
RAJUK, as mandated by the Town Improvement Act 1953, should be responsible only for regulating the development of Dhaka. RAJUK’s practice of land development and selling is highly criticised by all the concerned bodies.
When the government itself violates its own planning rules, no one can stop destruction of the livability of this city.
A recent example is when an inter ministerial committee headed by the honourable minister, ministry of housing, permitted three housing projects respectively for retired army officers, police officers and former admin officers, while all three of these projects violated multiple basic DAP regulations against filling low and flood protected lands.
The project for the retired army officers named “Jolsiri” committed the violation in the largest scale. These exceptions made by the government paved the way for potential economic profit-seeking developers to convince the government to make more exceptions and to allow development on lands allocated as flood protection zones under the DAP.
There may be overestimation or impractical determination of “protected area,” which can be revised in the next plan upon rigorous analysis. But until the revision, everyone should follow the rules of law.
Search for further solutions
As the DMDP is expiring in 2015, a new project by RAJUK, titled Regional Development Planning (RDP), to revise the DMDP structure plan is underway with the financing from Asian Development Bank.
Two Korean and two Bangladeshi consultancy firms are working to revise the existing policies and developing new strategies for the next 20 years for a projected 13 million of extra population adding to the existing number.
These policies are supposed to guide further detailed planning for DAP. The main challenge will be to accommodate the additional population, ensuring quality of life and safeguarding the city’s environment.
For this, all the unimplemented policies, causes behind failure of previous policies, prevailing urban livability issues, and development pressures need to be carefully investigated, analysed and consulted with various levels of stakeholders.
A rigorous field survey needs to be carried out with updated geographic information systems.
Considering the adverse impacts of additional population entering the megacity in the coming decades, utility and infrastructures along with the current population pressure, the project is highlighting on alternative urban development options and growth management, development control, zoning and designing a new satellite town in the eastern fringe.
However, more brainstorming is continuing on how to reduce current and likely urban pressures on existing Dhaka core city and its transportation system. Transit oriented development (TOD) is one of the main ideas to be implemented in this project, which will connect small and medium urban centres within the vicinity of Dhaka city with each other and the city itself (see the map).
These projects could be implemented mobilising local resources and effective public-private partnership. Administrative and commercial activities are to be encouraged in those urban centres and discouraged within Dhaka core. To rejuvenate dilapidated Dhaka core, “redevelopment scheme” is to be suggested with the provision of “planned unit development” to implement mixed type land use development within a moderate size of urban block.
The blocks are to be developed by consolidating small sized plots by offering various incentives to the owners (eg transfer of development rights). This type of development should reduce travel distance.
To revive the green in the greying mega city, a “compensative greening” mechanism has been thought of, to designate responsibilities to private real estate developers as part of social responsibilities, rewarding and penalising them depending on their level of compliance.
Besides integrated water resource development, for example, storing rain water, supply of fresh water and initiation of low impact water based recreation can be thought of for water bodies like Hatirjheel, Gulshan-Banani lake as well as reclaimed old canals. To control development, Floor Area Ratio (FAR) should be strictly introduced after some revision because current FAR has some discrepancies in realising compact and mixed use development.
Finally, it can be firmly claimed that for a megacity like Dhaka, a unified urban governance system is acutely necessary. RAJUK is the primary planning authority, which is under the ministry of housing and public works.
There are also four city corporations and four municipalities within RAJUK area, which are under the ministry of local government. The heads of those local government bodies are elected through popular votes, so they may have different urban planning agenda with their locality.
There are other authorities like WASA, DPDC, DESCO, TITAS etc taking care of different aspects of urban life. Given such overlapped responsibilities, it is nearly impossible to get a planning policy to be smoothly implemented for the welfare of city dwellers.
So a one-stop “metropolitan government” should be introduced for the megacity Dhaka to overcome all obstacles to quality of urban life.