Town planning in Sri Lanka and its future

by Dr. Willie MENDIS

The sustainable growth in the economy necessarily require inclusiveness of all nine Provinces in the country. The professional skills and techniques imparted to and acquired by the Graduate Planners aptly equip them to perform their duties in planning to the highest standards of efficiency and effectiveness. The public in turn can also expect to be engaged in place making.

Town Planning in Sri Lanka has evolved in three distinct consecutive periods, namely, 1915-1946, 1946-1978, and 1978-to date. During the first period, the focus was on ‘town improvement’ and setting design standards for habitable buildings.

Its aim was on public health, especially on sanitation. In the second period, the focus shifted to a comprehensive approach in planning human settlements.

Its underlying rationale was to complement town planning with the functions of the Local Authorities. Consequently, a nexus was formally established between town planning and the “regulation and administration of public health, public utility services, public thoroughfares, and amenities for the general comfort, convenience, and welfare of the people in a local authority area.” Town Planning complemented the latter by controlling and regulating development activity on land therein, by the preservation of places and buildings of architectural and historic merit and by the conservation of natural beauty.

Development activity itself meant the sub-division of land, the erection or re-erection of structures thereon and changes in the use of land and buildings and planning had to take account of the amenities available in the area. The scope of planning included the wider spatial fabric of the region surrounding the area and the formulation of land-use policy guidelines for the territorial bounds of the nation itself.

In the third period from 1978 to date, the focus sharpened to encompass the planning of areas declared suitable for urban development.

Its aim was to achieve the physical and economic development of land therein. Planning was entrusted to an institution created for this purpose, called the Urban Development Authority (UDA), which was separate from the Department of Town and Country Planning (DT&CP), that existed.

These two agencies were however coupled over time, which obligated the UDA to carry out planning in conformity with that of the DT&CP, (subsequently redesignated as the National Physical Planning Department, NPPD). The UDA was also empowered to delegate its powers, functions and duties related to planning, to the Local Authorities in its declared areas.

Operational framework

During the aforesaid periods, the respective outcomes varied. The urban development plans were prepared by the UDA for several areas declared suitable for development. Further, draft Regional Physical Plans had been prepared by the NPPD for four of the nine administrative Provinces. In addition, the National Physical Planning Policy and the National Physical Plan, have also been prepared by the NPPD. Nonetheless, the operational framework on ground has essentially been the “Planning and Building Regulations”, with or without its accompanying Plans.

It enabled the approval or refusal of development activity which had spiked at times in different areas of the country; especially after 1978. On the other hand, the pre-dominant reliance on a ‘regulatory system’ has produced mixed results in terms of development activity which was polarised in select areas of the country. There has been no spatial configuration of key nodes of human settlements to spread the process of development. Consequently, there has been a disconnect between economic growth, environmental oversight, and town planning. Therefore, the overarching impact of town planning lacked a pro-active posture with the challenges of mainstream issues of development. Town Planning was marginalised to being only a facilitator for the addition of “building stock” to the national physical assets inventory.

The context in which the relevance of town planning had its greatest impact thus became the “local level”. The development activity at the latter level became an index to manifest prosperity. Its aggregate in a wider spatial fabric would reflect the “Prosperity Index” of its Province. However, the disparities of development activity between the Provinces have become remarkable. The latter has now climbed upwards to be a matter of serious concern, showing the urgency to integrate the spatial dimension of Regional Physical Plans with the policies for economic development. On the other hand, the more recent initiative to compute “Prosperity Indices” for establishing targets, and to monitor rates of change in rates of provincial development benchmarked with that of the developed Western Province, have had no links with any of the provincial Regional Physical Plans prepared by the NPPD. Further, the on-going thrust to rehabilitate and develop the Eastern Province, has similar hallmarks.

Migration of postgraduates

In these circumstances, the development orientation of Town Planning in Sri Lanka, has to find fruition in ensuring that the “physical and economic development of land” has a spatial and conceptual link to the process of economic planning. A serious issue which had overwhelmed the progress on the latter has been the underesourced capacity of qualified Town Planning personnel in the public sector and in the private consultancy practices. The country’s exclusive provider of planning education, namely the University of Moratuwa, had been itself constrained to offer only post-graduate courses which limited its output to between 10 to 15 graduates per year.

Their subsequent attrition due to retirement, overseas migration, etc., had further deteriorated the available capacity. Consequently, the University’s decision in 2003 to shift its focus to launch a full-time, four-year undergraduate course in Town Planning, will relieve the crisis by the annual addition of about 50 to the human resources reservoir in planning. The youthfulness of these Graduate Planners will be an attribute that will spread their contribution over a longer period in the different areas of the country. In addition, the skills acquired by them in the newer computer-based technologies in Mapping, Land Use Analysis and number crunching, will greatly facilitate better service by them.The Graduate Planners will thus form the backbone of town planning in Sri Lanka in the future.

Their strength in numbers and in professional quality is expected to revitalise the process of “physical and economic development of land” at all three spatial scales of local, regional and national. Consequently, it is envisaged that the influence and impact of Town Planning will make a quantum leap in steering development activity to make places better for living. Its outcomes will bring about the integration of town planning and economic planning which has alluded the island’s development process for the last six decades. The sustainable growth in the economy necessarily require inclusiveness of all nine Provinces in the country. The professional skills and techniques imparted to and acquired by the Graduate Planners aptly equip them to perform their duties in planning to the highest standards of efficiency and effectiveness.

The public in turn can also expect to be engaged in place making. Meanwhile, the trend towards more devolution implies the inevitable connection of the spatial dimension in making choices for development activity at the devolved level. Its influence in its wider hinterland has not only economic implications but also social, physical and environmental implications. The inclusive consideration of the latter is central to the domain of town planning. Its outcomes will embrace financial aspects that are pivotal to the property tax regime of the Local Authorities in the different areas. Town Plans will therefore become the catalysts for revenue generation in such areas. Its significance will be reflected in the future when Sri Lanka’s share of urban population will rise to half its total. In such a context, the role of Local Government and its nexus with Provincial and Central Governments will become extremely pronounced.

The Graduate Planners who will be prominent in the aforesaid paradigm shift have already organised themselves to constitute the “Young Planners Forum” within the parent Institute of Town Planners, Sri Lanka. The beneficial outcome of it will be manifest in innovation and change in the Town Plans.

The writer is emeritus Professor of Town and Country Planning of the University of Moratuwa