Going High Rise in Cities
Dr
Nasir Javed
The Prime Minister Imran Khan has directed the cities to save
agricultural land from further urban development and focus on building high
rise instead of urban sprawl.
In principle very good guideline for smart urban planning.
As in most cases, translating a policy principle into
corresponding zoning & building regulations is a challenge. It is
highly probable that without much expert advice or any kind of analytical work,
the Local Governments and Development Authorities would amend the existing bye
laws, relaxing the height restrictions in many zones across the city…. The result
might be a bigger problem.
It is also probable that some experts and NGOs would start
lobbying against this change in bye laws, and insisting on low rise
developments, in the name of poor infrastructure, environment and culture. And one
conclusion is for sure that both would be just lobbying, with little data or
evidence.
The current blog doesn’t offer space for a detailed discussion
on the subject, being a complex one and requiring much work. However, I would
like to highlight just 2 relevant points.
1: The issue of urban services & utilities: The argument against going high is the lack of urban
services and facilities, like road, water, sewerage, drainage and parks etc.
Yes. That is a constraint. But in most cases of urban re zoning & redevelopment,
the most critical constraint is that of road and mobility, especially in car
based cities. All other services can be managed / upgraded.
2: How to prioritize high rise zoning. Currently the LDA regulations
permit height on the basis of road width…. unfortunately not a very efficient
formula. The solution is to link high rise zones with the routes of mass
transit. The Orange line and the BRT lines have the capacity to carry
thousands of passengers per hour. However, the most probable commuters on these
lines are people who can walk to and from the BRT / OL stations, while
commuting from their homes to offices / shops. The evidence suggests that if
people have to take multiple vehicles (from home to stop, Speedo, BRT Speedo, walk etc), they are not likely to use the BRT.
Almost all over the developed world, areas within the walking
distance of BRT stations are most expensive for this reason and are permitted
mix use high density development. The Ahmadabad BRT lines are a classic
example, where building bye laws were revised and within five to ten years, the
entire landscape transformed into medium to high rise re developments. So did happen
in Vancouver and in many other cities.
Lahore has more than 50 BRT/OL stations. Area within a circle
of 0.4 -0.6km radius is the golden zone. What the LDA need to do is to carry
out a survey of the existing land use for each of the zones around these stations
and make a proposal for allowing upto
no limit height constructions in this zone. Each of the 50 circles
would need to be identified and selected as residential, commercial or mix use,
depending upon the location and other factors of urban planning. Each of these zones would be around a 1000
-2000 kanals, of which at least half could be built up area.
Thus we get a high Rise zone of almost 20 - 40,000 kanals of
high rise mix use buildings. And the beauty of this development is that since
it would be very close to these mass transit lines, would make passenger counts
attractive and won’t cause as much car congestion, as would be if high rise are
allowed across the city.
Last but not the least, government won’t have to spend money,
as enhanced taxation on these lots should be more than enough to pay for the infrastructure
upgrade. In fact, the real cost of infrastructure upgrade (the BRT & OL)
has already been paid. Now is the time to reap dividends. Perhaps there would
be hardly any need for new hosing colonies on green lands for a decade at
least.
PS: This doesn’t
preclude allowing other areas as medium to high rise zones, but their need
would be limited and should be well planned.
