Addressing ground realities: Local Area Planning and Design

Local Area Plans are envisaged as a finely-tuned development tool to address issues of building use and distribution, with the assessment of community needs routed through the elected representatives at ward level. This new vision about development is a planning approximation of an Urban Design based development, involving built form, building and space use, functions, activities and people

The concept of local area planning was practiced in the form of Improvement Schemes and Town Planning Schemes in the early part of 20^th century in various parts of Maharashtra and Gujarat. It lost relevance in the modern urban planning milieu of Indian cities. Recently, it has been re-introduced in India. MPD-2021, AUDA Development Plan-2031 and Draft Mumbai Development Plan have proposed local area planning as a crucial stage in the planning process. The URDPFI guidelines (2015) also propose this level of planning as an important component. This is a much needed change that reflects the contemporary focus on public participation in every sphere of development including urban development. The electoral ward, a spatio-political unit, is gradually getting recognized in the planning sphere as the lowest planning unit with a purpose to engage directly with elected representatives as well as local people in the development process.

Much of the planning effort over the last 50 years, in the form of Master/Development Plan, has focused on opening green-field sites for city expansion. To deal with already developed parts of the city in terms of urban renewal/redevelopment, local area planning is seen as an important tool as it has the potential to resolve area and local level issues. Local Area Plans are also envisaged as a finely-tuned development tool to address issues of building use and distribution, with the assessmentof community needs routed through the elected representatives at ward level. This new vision about development is a planning approximation of an Urban Design based development, involving built form, building and space use, functions, activities and people.In fact, the use of Urban Design strategies and processes becomes the most relevant application at this scale given its interdisciplinary approach and its focus on local context, constituent places and people. Any intervention, both in built-up and green-field areas would require zooming to the scale of Urban Design, which can successfully connect the envisaged local development with the larger planning objectives.

As one of the foremostacademic institutions in the country to initiate such an exercise –the Department of Urban Design at School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi has been engaged in developing a methodology for an urban design approach in the preparation of Local Area Plans (LAPs) with a strong focus on public participation. The aim of such an initiative is to move the design discourse out of the technical domain and locate it in the midst of people and contexts, so that designers explore the process of learning through engagement with local community.

Since 2010, every year, some wards of Delhi are selected and the above-mentioned ‘LAP’ studio is conducted with the objective of imparting students withrequisite skills (in the form of tools and techniques of participation) to understand the aspirations of local people about their locality/neighbourhood and to comprehend developmental history and structural changes faced by the city through the microcosm of the ward while reflecting these in terms of policy/development framework at city level. The Studio starts with rapid assessment of morphological and socio-economic characteristics of the ward and identification of key stakeholders. Issues and development strategies are identified with the help of a large public meeting in the presence of area councilor. Design proposals arethen conceptualized and these projects are taken back to the local community for deliberation in the form of meetings and exhibitions. The area designs and improvement schemes are further refined to reflect the concerns of the people. This studio, over a period of time, has used both, conventional as well as, experimental and unique techniques for engagement and participation of local inhabitants including focus group discussions, structured questionnaires,formal public meetings, drawing competitions, interactive physical models, and feedback through a website of the local area. The Studio also focuses on the production of a three dimensional development model reflecting and incorporating the multiple visions of the ward and the city, covering a wide range of morphological, functional, environmental and social characteristics.

Till date, this Studio at Department of Urban Design has covered 20 wards of Delhi including all the wards of Shahjahanbad (Old Delhi) and a number of schemes have been developed for urban renewal, area improvement and redevelopment of inner city areas of the city by students under the guidance of highly experienced faculty members. The Studio has revealed the legal, political and institutional nuances of undertaking improvement at local level. It has also thrown open some important questions with regard to processes and policy of planning and redevelopment of existing areas in Indian cities such as, (i) Should the Master Plans and Zonal Development Plans (ZDPs) which are legally binding documents, precede the local area plans? (ii) If the LAPs combined to make ZDPs which in turn are in dialogue with the master plan, would this protect the local area’s interests better? (iii) Can the ward be a successful unit for local area planning without adequate reference tobroader geographical features and terrain which are crucial to spatial planning? And, (iv) How can it be made possible to include multiple and diverse stakeholders who are residents as well as users of these areas but may not be voters from the ward?

The most recent evidence where the scale of Local Area Plan is recognized as most effective for transforming existing cities is seen in the Smart City Mission Guidelines, which emphasize on citizen-centric area based development which strongly resonates with the ideas being discussed here.