Homes for People and Land for Urban Development

A revolutionary strategy for housing the urban poor :

Lalitha Mirihagalla
Chartered Town Planner

There are no visible ruins of the houses of commoners in the early history of Sri Lanka, other than the ruins of religious and monastic buildings. This was the heritage of feudalistic society in which ordinary people had buildings made of improvised materials.

Theoretically the society today is more liberal. Every one is considered equal. discrimination between man and woman is withering away. Feudalistic values are wiped out and democracy prevails. Everybody has access to the benefit of development, technology and materials.

Is the above phenomenon realistic in the society, we are living today? Presidential Task Force on Housing and Urban Development (1998) revealed that the housing in the extreme conditions within the Colombo Metropolitan Region (CMR) was 150,000.

Status in the city of Colombo is alarming as 51 per cent of the city residential population live in under-served

 settlements which in the traditional terminology are known as slums and shanties.

Extent of the land occupied by these under-privileged people is nearly 1,000 acres (390 Ha) which is 11 per cent of the total extent of the Colombo Municipal Council Area.

Urban poor, a typical product of wrong economic development processes, live in extreme hosing conditions with insufficient basic amenities and mostly with no home ownership.

They have been marginalised from the mainstream of the society. In addition to the burden of unemployment, they are exposed to hazardous environmental and health related conditions. Most of them live in their whole life in jam-packed, ill-ventilated and ill-equipped spaces.

Most children in these under-served settlements do not have access to basic education; many do not have a childhood getting easily vulnerable to urban crimes. Even children who have some opportunity to go to schools are socially depressed due to prevailing social and environmental conditions of their neighbourhoods.

Condition of women is rather pathetic. Home is a dream of any housewife, which has been beyond the reach of their lifetime.

“Gender Equity” is just a term for the women in these under-served settlements. They are socially and economically exploited. They live, sleep and cook in the same tiny space for their whole life-time.

The average floor area occupied by a family of five members in an undeserved settlement is less than 350 sq.ft. Researchers frequently assess these settlements as indicators of social decline.

A slum or a shanty is a symbol of urban poverty. These neighbourhoods inflict social stigma upon the life of poor. When over half of the city population lives in such poor housing conditions, one can argue that Colombo should be regarded as a “Shanty Town”.

The policies and strategies adopted in housing development in the past decades seemed to be short-sighted and micro focused without a vision of integrated planning and development.

Housing was mostly looked at as a physical problem rather than a reflection of a deep socio-economic issue. Obviously those popular shelter development strategies implemented in Colombo during the past have failed to address the issue in a pragmatic way that resulted in “long lasting the urban poor”.

Continuously growing poverty, Social Insecurity, Urban Crime etc. became integral parts of the city. The past low income housing policies and strategies were able to provide intermediate temporary remedies.

They totally departed from the city economy and its role in providing a long lasting solution. The present status of the under-served settlements in the City of Colombo is well evident of the drawback of these endeavors.

Since low income housing problem is a social reflection of the city economy, a long lasting solution should be designed by understanding the economic function of the city and integrating the strategies into the city economy effectively. The growth of city economy should result in better living conditions to the urban poor.

The latter part of the 20th century marked a drastic change in the world map making previously closed economies to recognise open economic policies. Sri Lanka implemented these policies from 1977, making the private investment a main force of economic development.

Investments in the city mainly in the property development sector grew continuously, through local and foreign investments. Even during economic set backs in the country, Colombo property market experienced an upward move.

This development pattern in Colombo resulted in unprecedented rise in land values and increase in employment opportunities in many sectors, particularly in the construction industry and service sector.

If not for the shortage of infrastructure due to inadequate public investments, growth of the construction industry in the city would have experienced even greater growth.

When considering the above from the point of view of upgrading living standards of poor, no doubt that it requires a holistic and revolutionary approach related to land use planning.

It would consider solving the problems of poor by integrating the strategies into the market economy. Obviously such integration requires providing benefits to both the low income people and the private sector developers.

Background

* High land value in the city associated with inadequate land parcels for private sector development; the present average market value of land in the City of Colombo is in the range of Rs. 500,000 - 600,000 per perch. The range between the lowest and highest land values is very high depending on the location and the environment. Particularly the land value in the areas in Colombo 3,2,5, and 7 have increased up to Rs. 15 million per perch.

* The Average plot size consumed by a squatter family in the city of Colombo is 2 perches in extent meaning one low income housing unit is built on a plot of land, worth minimum of Rs. 1 million. 60 per cent of these under-served settlements are situated in prime locations of which 30 per cent is categorised as “very prime” worth over Rs. 5 million per perch.

* Major portion of lands occupied by under-served settlements is located on land owned by the State sector. 330 Ha (816 acres) of lands occupied by underserved settlements in the city of Colombo is owned by the government institutions. These institutions are unable to enjoy the ownership of these lands due to heavy encumbrances, other than the book value shown in their balance sheet of accounts. Hence, the simple concept would be to re-develop the State owned lands as mentioned above with the aim of providing housing for poor and making lands available for private sector investments.

* Possibility of mobilising the public towards a market oriented system where all the stakeholders benefit.

However, in order to cut short the cumbersome procedures in land acquisition and alienation, which are major bottlenecks in land development in Colombo a new institutional system was required, which created the way for establishment of REEL.

The breakthrough

The Establishment of Sustainable Township Programme and its management arm of Real Estate, Exchange (Pvt) Ltd (REEL) took place. REEL shareholders are UDA, NHDA, SLLRDC, CMC and the General Treasury.

The Vision of REEL as shown in its policy paper is to make Colombo a world class city without under-served settlements through market lead re-housing and redevelopment creating optimum wealth for the nation.

Its Mission is to fulfill the aspirations of the slum dwellers in Colombo by provisioning of housing with modern

 amenities in livable environment through re-housing.

Also re-development of fragmented land occupied by slum dwellers through re-assembling and thereby assisting planners in their endeavours in regenerating Colombo into a planned city is determined by REEL.

In this context REEL plays the lead role of “market maker” by facilitating private sector real estate development initiatives through the motto of “Home for People and Land for Development”.

Although the REEL was established with the patronage of the Government it has a flexibility of a private company, which embarked upon a novel approach of housing provided in “Compact Townships” in the wider context of urban development - keeping with the sustainable urban development concepts.

The concept of “Compact Township” was presented by Rogers R. in “Cities for a Small Planet” published in 1997, to develop sustainable urban neighbourhoods. In this concept residential neighbourhood is taken as an integral part of economic and social environment.

Compact township is an urban village where housing, employment, and leisure; the three major elements required for satisfactory human life concentrate within a sizable geographical zone connected to transportation node in a city. Compact Township has to be compatible with the development plan of the city.

Once the boundaries of the compact townships are identified it has to be gazzetted to freeze ad hoc development. Then the detail planning takes place to specify residential areas, recreation and employment generation zones within an efficient accessibility network.

Building heights, densities, housing typologies are some of other details to be considered in the stage of planning. Compact Township paves the away towards urban re-generation.

Five compact townships identified by REEL on the above conceptual framework are shown in the map.

The REEL Process

A revolutionary methodology for relocation of undeserved settlements was introduced by REEL in 1998. This methodology is called the “REEL Process” which aims to re-house families in under-served settlements to modern apartments built in compact townships in lieu of a possession of properties on which they have been living.

REEL first conducted an enumeration survey within the city of Colombo in view of developing a digital database of under-served settlements - a prerequisite in planning. This was the first comprehensive data base prepared for the city of Colombo related to underserved settlements.

This database consists of structural information of dwellings, including floor area of units, available amenities and services, digital photographs of both shelter and members of the dwelling unit, sketch design to guide the location of each unit in respective settlements and the location map of each settlement. REEL spent nearly two years to complete this database by employing 60 graduate enumerators.

Re-housing programme

Providing better housing with essential basic amenities to change the living environment of under-served settlements should be the gateway toward making Colombo, a safer, healthy and sustainable city.

REEL Re-Housing programme is a self-financing, market based an private sector driven programme. The basic implementation strategy of the re-housing programme is to exchange an apartment unit with the possession of the land occupied by the household in the under-served settlements.

This does not carry any political, social or ethnic discrimination in identifying beneficiaries. This process directs to clear an underserved settlement completely, thereby re-assemble a sizable land for re-development.

It is a process of home to home exchange. At the first time the urban poor is given an opportunity to trade-off their encumbered land against a new apartment with full ownership. Negotiations with beneficiary families take place at the “REEL Trade Floor” where the beneficiaries are called upon in batches to negotiate for exchange.

Relocation in this context is voluntary. No forcibly ejection takes place. Therefore, the most challenging part of the relocation process is to reach beneficiary families and to market the concept for voluntary relocation.

Housing apartments are constructed in different typologies and sizes enabling to match with the real requirements. These houses are essentially in the vertical form. High density vertical condominiums demand more sophisticated construction and management systems.

The size of the flat, No. of persons per unit, internal flow area per person, outdoor usable area, parking and circulations etc are some of the key factors that have to be taken into consideration in planning of developing high-density housing.

Achieving a higher flow area ratio is essential to release adequate extent of land to the market for trade-off re-housing options.

REEL is adhering to adopt modern architecture and aesthetic view of buildings which will enhance the value of built environment of Colombo.

Also REEL prefers the designs having minimum maintenance cost. Social considerations such as being conducive to minimum crime and vandalism while fostering social interactions among the residence are also taken into consideration at the design stage.

Entitled house with access to all the above facilities is given to the client totally free of charge. Beneficiaries even can demand more than their entitlement and ask for bigger housing units. This is accommodated during a negotiation related to the payment of the gap between the value of entitled house and the preferred house.

Further an absolute ownership of housing is granted to the beneficiary under the Apartment Ownership Law, making them proud owners of an apartment in the city of Colombo - for the first time in the history.

Lands cleared through re-location programme within the township is allocated for re-housing while prime land liberated outside the townships are meant for disposal in the open market for private sector investors, so as to generate funds to trade-off the cost of re-housing programme.

Implementation of the re-housing strategy is through the private sector participation. REEL is outsourcing construction of apartments while directly involved in planning and community mobilisation, social marketing and progress monitoring.

REEL Re-development programme

The self financing strategy is based on re-development of “obsolete” urban properties that will provide housing for poor and lands for urban development. After clearing all the encumbrances prime lands are made available to investors by various forms of investment systems. i.e. joint ventures with the REEL or direct sale of property to the highest bidder.

Development profiles of the said lands are made known and then advertised for re-development on the guidelines given by the UDA. Lands are transferred to third parties on short or long term leases for development. Preliminary supportive actions such as soil testing, title clearance, verifications, planning clearance and other required measures are attended by REEL.

REEL has accepted most latest, fast track construction techniques adopted by advanced countries with a view to finding innovative solutions to strengthen the high rise development in the city.

REEL is prepared to conduct group negotiations with prospective developers and other participants and also interact with bankers and other professionals, active in the sector to obtain the best financing package with the objective of achieving cost effectiveness in the re-housing process.

This new strategy is found to be the best solution to the shortage of financial instruments in the housing finance sector.

The social responsibility of planners in human settlement development is to improve the social equity of the citizens and make the “Poor” economically productive to serve the city economy effectively.

Effort of REEL is to provide the leadership in fulfilling this social responsibility, towards creating a sustainable city for future generations that will obviously make Colombo adequately competitive with the other regional cities.