THE Advisor to the Sindh Chief Minister launched an ambitious plan to award leases to the dwellers of 14 kutchi abadis in Karachi on February 8,2005).
This move has been long awaited as the dwellers of these abadis were of the view that leases were unnecessarily delayed by the concerned authorities.
Some of them claimed that the delay was caused due to ongoing tussle between City District Government at Karachi and government of Sindh. Others believe that due to local elections there is an attempt to gain political mileage from this vital issue. Despite the completion of administrative formalities, the leases could not be granted due to reasons best known to the authorities.
While the opinions of kutchi abadi dwellers may not be agreed by the GoS, it is however a fact that the issues related to land management in Karachi have been lying neglected for a considerable period of time. A wide range of stakeholders have been affected.
For example, the business of housing finance institutions is affected due to inadequate means to verify land and housing documents needed for processing housing loans. Many a potential borrowers are unable to meet banking conditions due to lack of legal land title.
Informal sector residents, who are in desperate need of housing development loans, can barely satisfy the conservative and stringent needs of formal creditors. No concerned agency paid any heed to this crucial issue for a sizable period of time.
Fifteen years ago, the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC - now defunct) commissioned a broad based study of urban land use and management. The study, which was supported by the World Bank, aimed at analyzing the various trends and dynamics of land utilization patterns.
The study provided a comprehensive analysis of the urban land market, real estate trends in various key locations, informal settlements and legal and administrative elements affecting the overall land supply and development.
Whereas the study was undertaken as part of the Karachi Special Development Project under donor assistance, it served as a useful tool for understanding the Karachi's land use and development scenario.
However, like many similar isolated and project bound attempts, it soon lost its significance as it could neither be updated nor properly utilized for generating any appropriate planning and development mechanism.
The other irony is the fact that the seven vital issues identified in one of the volumes of the study are still valid today without an iota of difference in the situation. It will be useful to relate the present land situation from the prism of the findings of that study to understand the prevailing dynamics.
It was found that the land policies do not reflect the range of quasi-legal situations existing between formal housing and informal housing. Various intermediate situations have been discovered in the land and housing scenario which can not be described as legal from the statutory standpoint.
As per standard definitions, the land or housing which is formally registered through the offices of registrar after completion of formalities related to the title are recognized as legal properties.
According to another definition, the property which can be accepted by a housing finance institution for mortgage financing is a legally valid property. Spot field studies have shown that there are many lacunae where land and housing units fall short of meeting any of the two conditions.
In reference to land, the plots floated in any scheme of development authorities, legally constituted cooperative societies or any other land owning agency are termed as formally titled land. Legality of such land parcels is only verified and accepted when the leasing conditions of the concerned neighbourhood / locality are completely fulfilled.
Kutchi abadies which have been approved for regularization but await the initiation of leasing process; neighbourhoods which await the notification of amelioration plans; localities where change of land use has taken place and areas that have a change of status or jurisdiction are only a few types which can not be compared with a normally leased area. Owners and prospective buyers have to suffer due to indifference of planning and development agencies.
Land and housing floating mechanism is so designed that speculation automatically evolves in the process. Land development agencies from civilian and military domain allot land parcels at a very low selling price.
As the owner completes the formalities, he already possesses the opportunity of delaying construction and accruing profits on idle land. Since powerful interest groups benefit from this in-built procedural defect, they are averse to change the practice. Regulatory controls in the form of non utilization fees or any other form of levies are either non enforceable or too minuscule to bother the property owners.
A simple outcome is the artificial rise in property demands that results into a rush supply of land and housing without any urban planning blue print. Land sales along Super Highway, Defence society and lands along major transportation projects are examples. These instances render land management and control an even more uphill task.
It may also be understood that an absolutely uncontrolled market mechanism soon becomes a detrimental for the stakeholders themselves. In Karachi, the impotence of land control bodies has been historical.
Vested interests, in connivance with government functionaries, have managed to keep planning agencies and building / town planning control departments separate from each other. Thus urban planning, wherever and whenever performed, only becomes a ritual. Nobody is bound or regulated to follow its prescriptions.
It is wishfully assumed that by revising the statutes and regulations of building and town planning, land management strategies would emerge automatically. The realities are otherwise.
Building and town planning controls affect a small minority of urban areas of the city. Federal districts, cantonments and military estates, port authorities, railways, katchi abadies of various ages and profiles are not under the writ of building control mechanism of the city.
Thus the land market and construction boom generated from these locations soon exert pressure on other city areas. Building code violations, blatant changes in land use and mindless adoption of street commercialization policies play a havoc in the domain of land control.
Karachi has a historical city core where land use issues are very different and pressing. It is degenerating at a swift pace due to expanding wholesale market activities. These activities are expanding into building stock that is neither designed nor capable of accommodating these complexities.
Violation of all kind in basic safety and security regulations have turned these neighbourhoods into dangerous spots. For example, chemical market in the old town area is an extremely hazardous spot. Lethal chemicals are off loaded and stocked unchecked.
They need to be relocated to an appropriate sub-urban location. Heritage conservation and revival of cultural activities are an utmost vital pre-requisite to deal with social decline in the old town areas.
Devising an appropriate land management strategy is essential to sustain the economic spine of the city. From housing and construction finance to infrastructural investments, land management is required to streamline the affairs.
In a business- friendly manner, such strategies may be formulated that could make land allocation, registration and development a transparent mechanism. It must be understood that land is a finite asset. If used in callous manner, the damage shall haunt the generations to come!
