NEED AND SCOPE OF COMPREHENSIVE PLAN

AR-309: ARCHITECTURE AND TOWN PLANNING (A&TP-B)
By:
RAVINDAR KUMAR
Assistant Professor
Department of Architecture and Planning
NED University of Engineering and Technology
Karachi

LECTURE NO: 13
TOPIC: NEED AND SCOPE OF COMPREHENSIVE PLAN

INTRODUCTION:
It is a grave reality that planning is a process. Throughout the evolution of mankind different tools develops for the planning of cities & towns. These tools may be physical, social, economic or technical. The comprehensive plan is basically a tool for growth and development guidance of the city. Town planning broadened in the late 1960s beyond a purely physical orientation. In its modern form, town planning is an ongoing process that concerns not only on physical design but also social, economic, and political policy issues.

As a fabric of human organization, a city is a complex weave. On one level it consists of the arrangement of neighbourhoods, industry, and commerce according to aesthetic and functional standards and the provision of public services for them. On another, perhaps more important, level it also comprises:

• The background, education, work, and aspirations of its residents;
• The general functioning of the economic system to which they belong, as well as their positions in and rewards from that system; and
• Their ability to make or influence the policy decisions that affect their daily lives.
  
  Viewed from this perspective, town planning requires more than a narrow specialist who can develop and implement a physical plan. More general skills and activities are also needed. They include:
  
• The collection and analysis of data about the city and its population;
• Research into the need for and availability of social services;
• The development, evaluation, coordination, and administration of programmes and timetables to supply these services;
• Programmes for economic and housing development and redevelopment—not only planning, but also packaging, financing, and carrying out the development, establishing public and private partnerships, and so forth; and
• Effective use of political activity and citizen participation to influence the character of and give support to development programmes.
  
  THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN
  The basic town-planning document is a comprehensive plan that is adopted and maintained with regular revisions. The plan receives its day-to-day expression in a series of legal documents—town planning controls, subdivision regulations, and building and housing codes—that establish standards of land use and quality of construction.
  
  THE NEED AND SCOPE OF COMPREHENSIVE PLAN:
  The need and scope of comprehensive plan varies context to context. However; in generic terms it serves many purposes:
• It brings together the analyses of the social, economic, and physical characteristics (such as the distribution of population, industry, businesses, open spaces, and publicly built facilities) that led to the plan;
• It examines special problems and opportunities within the city and establishes community-development objectives;
• It coordinates land development with transport, water supply, schools, and other facilities;
• It proposes ways to accomplish these coordinated objectives over time;
• It relates the plan to its impact on public revenues and expenditures; and
• It proposes regulations, policies, and programmes to implement the plan.
  
• Thus; the comprehensive plan is the guide to making daily development decisions in terms of their long-range consequences. In this respect town planning controls, subdivision regulations, and building and housing codes are the actual terms of reference for a comprehensive plan.
  
  TOWN PLANNING CONTROLS:
  Land is allocated and private activities are coordinated with public facilities by means of zoning ordinances and subdivision regulations. A planning regulation or zoning ordinance governs how the land may be used and the size, type, and number of structures that may be built on the land. All land within a city is divided into districts, or zones. In these districts certain land uses are allowed by right, and general restrictions on building height, bulk, and use are specified. The regulations carry out the land allocations recommended in the comprehensive plan. Specific locations are given for different types of residences, industries, and businesses. Specific numbers are given for allowable heights of buildings, coverage of a lot, and density. Allowable land uses are specified for each area, including special conditions such as required off-street parking. Most regulations are termed “matter-of-right”; if the specified requirements are met a permit will be given. Other regulations provide general standards with considerable flexibility in the mixture of building uses or the building design. These require more extensive review before approval.
  
  SUBDIVISION REGULATIONS:
  The conversion of raw land (construction on previously undeveloped land) is controlled by subdivision regulations and by site-plan review. These ordinances establish standards of land development by regulating such features as roadway width, drainage requirements, traffic circulation, and lot sizes. Subdivision regulations and site-plan review guide orderly development, protect prospective and current residents from poorly designed buildings or business districts, and ensure that most of the costs of land conversion are borne by those who will benefit from the development, that is, by the developer and the future residents.
  
  BUILDING AND HOUSING CODES:
  Building and housing codes govern the quality and safety of construction of new buildings, as well as subsequent maintenance. In most instances, the codes specify the materials to be used, their minimum quality, and the building components necessary in a structure that is suitable for human occupancy.
  
  
  SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY:
  Although the physical appearance and functioning of the city are the traditional focus of town planning, the city's population and economic resources are an important concern. Thus, contemporary town planning continues to focus on physical design, but also addresses the many long-range social and economic decisions that must be made. A city has social needs and economic capital. The city government acts as a purchasing agent for many services needed by residents and businesses—for example, education, water supply, police and fire protection, and recreation. The quality, character, and efficiency of these services require planning to fit needs and desires with funding, with technological change, and with objectives for physical development.
  
  Town planning, moreover, should be concerned with providing decent housing (and minimal economic aid) to residents who cannot afford this basic amenity. When local housing is deficient and economic resources permit its upgrading, the town planning department may survey housing conditions and coordinate funding to finance its development and rehabilitation. The city's economic development and redevelopment also fall within the scope of town planning. Economic development plans make use of a mixture of incentives, technical assistance, and marketing to create jobs, establish new industry and business, help existing enterprises to flourish, rehabilitate what is salvageable, and redevelop what cannot be saved. Economic development, however, must go beyond the enterprise and the facility to reach the workers. In a rapidly evolving technological environment with frequent global shifts in trade relations, skilled workers need new skills and unskilled people need some skills. Job training is a necessary part of development strategy, especially for the city's poor and unemployed citizens.
  
  Capital improvement programming is the budgeting tool used by planners to schedule the construction and financing of public works. Capital projects—such as road improvements, street lighting, public parking facilities, and purchase of land for open spaces—must be sorted out and assigned priorities. A programme prepared each year sets the priorities for the next five to six years on projects needed to implement the comprehensive plan and replace the worn out infrastructure. In rapidly growing regions, town planners are constantly faced with public facilities that have become inadequate for future development.
  
  In declining areas, economic redevelopment is of prime concern. Before any new capital improvements are scheduled, the condition and viability of the neighbourhood must be assessed and strategies for remedy must be adopted. Some declining neighbourhoods require vigorous public development; others should be left to available private development.
  
  The urban-renewal movement of the 1940s was insensitive to the cyclical ebbs and flows of city neighbourhoods. From the 1940s through the 1960s it was believed that if an economic function such as business or industry failed, all that was needed was to crop out the “decay” and clear the land for reuse. In many instances the redevelopment never appeared. The multiple forces that affect neighbourhood changes were ignored or improperly analysed. Town planners now understand that regional, interregional, national, and international economic forces affect a city.
  They also realize that the effectiveness of plans to bring about a city's continued economic viability depends on the correct analysis and interpretation of these forces. These are the lessons of the shifts in suburban, non-metropolitan, and interregional economic patterns that took place in the 1960s and 1970s.
  
  Town planners today are becoming ever more involved with environmental concerns. Environmental planning coordinates development to meet objectives for clean air and water; removal of toxic and other wastes; recycling of resources; energy conservation; protection of wetlands, beaches, hillsides, farmlands, forests, and floodplains; and preservation of wildlife, natural reserves, and rivers. Historic preservation strives to keep important buildings and places as part of the permanent environment and uses them to finance the maintenance costs.
  
  Although town planners may report to mayors, city managers, or other officials, their true clients are the people and businesses of the city. Their plans must reflect the interests and priorities of these two groups, and the programmes that are implemented must, at the same time, help the city survive and maintain the quality of life that these groups desire. Political astuteness is required in order to ensure that neighbourhood programmes and priorities will be properly perceived by local and state officials and will stand a chance for implementation.
  
  THE FUTURE OF CITIES AND TOWN PLANNING
  Town planning in the last decades of the 20th century is becoming increasingly involved in setting or executing policy about public services and with delivering these services. Since it is apparent that resources are limited and that global events affect the future of each community, town planning must be done within a framework of national and international planning for mutually sustainable development.
  
  The capital infrastructures of many older cities need replacement. Public schools and city hospitals are a shadow of formerly dominant city institutions. For half a century the public was mesmerized by the outer reaches of metropolitan areas. The force of this attraction has been so strong that when travel distances to jobs in the city centre became excessive, companies moved and took the jobs to the suburbs. In the late 20th century, however, the newest generation of adults—younger than most city residents, more mobile, frequently childless, and enjoying greater freedom in their living relationships—has become enamoured of city life. Cities are responding by directing public services and capital improvements towards upgrading the quality of life in those areas that have unique attractions for this new population.
  
  In this setting, different groups of city residents have become more sophisticated in pursuing their special interests. They are better informed, understand laws and procedures have greater political skills, and are more militant and persistent. They have learned that planning brings order to change and, thus, they want to influence the planning. In turn, town planners are attempting to balance the demands of competing interests into a dynamic community consensus sufficient to allow decisions to be made. Also, reaction against central planning and in favour of private development in the 1980s and 1990s has led to ambitious experiments in the curtailment of planning controls, sometimes—as in London's Docklands redevelopment—with mixed results.
  
  CONCLUSION:
  In the future, town planning will continue to work under conditions of scarce urban economic resources and will constantly be faced with competing priorities—of neighbourhoods, interest groups, businesses, and residents.