Try out land pooling, TDR for land development, says urban planner

‘The traffic police must proactively clear encroachments that obstruct pedestrians, motorists’

With urban development occurring at a fast pace in the country, cities must try out innovative modes of land development like land pooling and transfer of development rights (TDR), N.K. Patel, who was one of the foremost urban planners in India and was also the chairman of National Real Estate Development Council, has said.

He is among the experts who will present papers on Sunday at ‘Bodhi’, the two-day national sustainable urban development conclave that will be inaugurated by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan at Bolgatty Palace and Island Resort here. It is organised jointly by the Greater Cochin Development Authority (GCDA) and the Association of Municipalities and Development Authorities (AMDA).

His expertise in urban planning, with focus on affordable urban housing and land management, helped him write a few books on the topics. Mr. Patel spoke on the need to focus on micro-level development of urban lands since master plans of most Indian cities focused mostly on macro-level development. “One must give attention to readying civic amenities and to conserving regional ecology as well,” he said.

Obtaining land for housing and development projects can be streamlined through land pooling and TDR, he said and cited how the land pooling system, a public-private partnership (PPP) initiative, evolved over time in Gujarat. “In this, land owners can hand over a part of their farm or other lands to a development authority that will ready sanitation and other civic infrastructure there. This will in turn improve the value of the land even as landowners hold on to the rest of their ancestral land. Such a town-planning scheme helps develop lands without government agencies having to invest funds. This win-win situation will benefit the developer and landowner, while a small portion of the land can be set apart for the urban poor,” he observed.

Mr. Patel spoke of how TDR was initiated in New York, following which many countries followed suit. It also helps ready parking and allied infrastructure, since development authorities need not invest money for the purpose.

On the urban planning scheme in Kerala, he exhorted town planners to be extra cautious of the ecology. “The State also has ribbon development, with much of the space on either side of highways occupied by shops and other commercial firms. A land pooling system can be adopted here, wherein they can be confined to dedicated spaces and a good road network built to link them.”

He called upon civic agencies to ready hawkers’ markets at different locales to prevent encroachments on footpaths and roads. The traffic police must proactively clear encroachments that obstruct pedestrians and motorists as is being done in Ahmedabad and other cities, he added.