Getting ahead of the game: A twin track approach to improving
existing slums and reducing the need for future slums
Paper presented at the Second World Bank Urban Research Symposium: Urban
Development for Economic Growth and Poverty reduction
December 15-17 2003-10-16 Washington DC, USA
Geoffrey Payne
Geoffrey Payne and Associates
34 Inglis Road
London W5 3RL
UK
[email protected]
www.gpa.org.uk
Abstract
Whilst many of the Millennium Development Goals represent an ambitious attempt to
reduce global poverty and improve the quality of life for the world’s poor, this cannot be
said for the goal concerned with urban development. Goal 7 of the MDGs aims to
improve the living conditions of 100 million slum dwellers by 2020. However, current
estimates suggest that there are presently nearly one billion people living in slums and
that this is projected to increase to 1.5 billion during the same period and to 2 billion by
2030. Even achieving this MDG is therefore to manage a retreat rather than achieve
significant progress.
The important policy objective for the international community and governments is
therefore to dramatically exceed, not just meet, this MDG. This can best be achieved by
adopting a twin-track approach towards existing and potential future slums. For the
former, innovative approaches to improving tenure security in existing unauthorized
1
settlements can improve living conditions, whilst revising regulatory frameworks can
reduce the need for future slums by significantly improving access to legal land and
shelter.
The paper provides evidence from recent and ongoing research which suggests that
intermediate tenure options, combined with regulatory audits of planning regulations,
standards and administrative procedures can significantly improve living conditions
within the human, technical and financial resources available.
Introduction:
The first step in solving a problem is to define it correctly. After much debate , the
international community and member states have declared that the main objectives
driving development policy for the coming decades are to be defined by a set of goals
and targets, collectively known as the Millennium Development Goals. These set global
targets for different sectors to be achieved by specified dates. Whilst many would go a
long way to reducing global poverty and improving the quality of life for the world’s poor,
this does not apply in the case of urban development, for which there are two key
targets. The most significant is Goal 7, in which target 10 seeks to halve by 2015 the
proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic
sanitation and target 11 which seeks to have achieved by 2020 a significant
improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.
2
These targets have to be seen in the context of the present and projected reality. UNHABITAT estimates that there are currently 924 million slum dwellers in the world and
that without significant intervention to improve access to water, sanitation, secure tenure
and adequate housing this number could grow to 1.5 billion by 2020. Other estimates
indicate that the total could increase to 2 billion by 2030. To achieve MDG target 11
would therefore meet only 10.8% of existing needs and only 7% of future needs by
2020. In other words, even if the MDG target is achieved, by 2020 there could be 1.4
billion people living in slums and squatter settlements compared to the 924 million at
present, an increase of 162%. Whilst the target may therefore be achievable, it does not
represent an appropriate or adequate definition of the challenge facing the international
community, national governments, civil society groups and professionals. In fact, it
suggests that a target-driven policy agenda is detracting attention from the real issues
which need to be addressed. Since the MDGs are also global targets, they also fail to
provide a basis for policy at national or local levels.
The real challenge is two-fold. First, there is a need to improve the living conditions of
far more than 100 million people living in slums and various types of unauthorised
settlements. Second, there is an equally urgent need to create conditions in which all
sections of urban society, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, can obtain
access to legal, affordable and appropriate shelter in ways which prevent the need for
future slums and unauthorised settlements. To add to the challenge still further, both
these objectives need to be achieved in ways which provide adequate levels of security
3
and access to livelihoods, services and credit. Even if the MDG target is achieved, it will
not resolve the first of these two challenges and do nothing to address the second.
A twin-track approach
Meeting present needs to improve living conditions for existing slum populations will in
itself be a daunting task. However, it will be inadequate unless equal efforts are made to
reduce the need for future slums. A twin-track approach is therefore vita l if we are to
turn things around and get ahead of the game.
What are the available options? First, it is important to identify the existing and potential
roles of the key stakeholders – the poor themselves, national and local governments,
civil society g roups, the private sector and the international community. Second, it is
important to assess ways in which the relative strengths of each stakeholder group can
be combined to maximise synergies between their contributions.
In terms of upgrading existing settlements, a major issue is that the poor, especially the
very poor, need to live close to locations where they can earn a livelihood. As Turner
(1967,1972) noted many years ago, this is more important than having permanent
security of tenure or formal credit. Yet the locations where employment prospects are
greatest are invariably the locations where competition, and therefore land prices, are
greatest. To upgrade such settlements therefore raises two issues: If the upgrading is
undertaken in ways which grant full titles, the residents will acquire, freely or at a
nominal cost, an asset which can command a high price in the formal land market.
4
Experience shows that under such conditions, many households sell the newly acquired
asset, realise its capital value and re-squat hoping to repeat the process. Such actions
may therefore actually result in increased informal settlements rather than their
decrease. They may also result in the eviction of tenants and increased litigation,
especially where land records are unclear.
How can poor households be able to remain in areas where they can generate a
livelihood? How can this be achieved without distorting land markets and creating
ghettos of the poor within urban centres? There are no universally applicable answers
to these questions. However, experience suggests that an important ingredient is to
provide a form of tenure to the residents of existing unauthorised settlements which is
sufficient to ensure protection from eviction, together with property rights 1 and
regulatory frameworks which entitle people to use their dwelling for a range of purposes
and be able to obtain basic services. In some cases, it might also facilitate high density
forms of multi-occupancy rather than individual houses on individual plots.
The provision of secure tenure can take a variety of forms from a simple moratorium on
relocations and evictions, to temporary occupation licences, communal or individual
leases, community land trusts, customary tenure, etc. The duration of such tenure forms
may be short in some cases, or almost permanent in others. They may provide the
option of extension or upgrading to more formal tenure systems over time, or
1
Tenure and property rights are not the same. Tenure relates to the mode by which
land is held or owned or the relationship among people concerning land or its product.
Property rights refer to a recognised interest in land or property vested in an individual
or group and can apply separately to land or development on it.
5
compensation for investments made. The key objectives should be to provide adequate
security and maintain or increase access by the urban poor to locations where they can
increase their incomes. It is also important to reduce the attraction of higher income
groups to buy out low-income residents. If such measures are combined with modest
planning and building regulations and standards, the subsidy burden or opportunity cost
of such measures can be further reduced and a virtuous cycle established between
tenure and regulatory regimes. These can be reinforced still further if administrative
procedures can be revised to lower the cost of entry to legal shelter (see Payne, 2001)
thus reducing the need for new slum formation.
The complementary component to upgrading in a twin-track approach is to reduce the
need for future slum formation. Among the constraints to accessing affordable legal
shelter, the key factors are invariably cost and regulatory frameworks, especially
planning and building regulations, standards and administrative procedures.
Unfortunately, these often tend to combine in that high standards impose higher costs
and complex bureaucratic procedures impose delays which require informal payments
to facilitate progress. In his seminal publication on regulatory frameworks, de Soto
noted (1989:24) that it took 159 bureaucratic steps to legalise informal settlements in
Lima and that this took on average twenty years. In a similar vein, Struyk et al (1990)
found that land transfers took an average of 32.5 months for a title to be issued in West
Java and estimated that this added between 10-29 percent to the cost of land
acquisition.
6
Such procedural constraints were found in the other countries, though high planning
standards, often based on inherited or imported norms, rather than local needs or
realities, provided further barriers. For example, the minimum official plot size in many
countries is significantly higher than is regularly found in informal settlements and
therefore requires a higher land price than many households can afford. It also
discourages the private sector from being able to meet the needs of lower income
households on a financially viable basis. Another key cost factor in official standards
relates to road reservations. These are often more demanding of land areas than are
required in the capital cities of Europe, where car ownership levels are dramatically
higher than found throughout suburban areas of developing countries. Such land areas
are not only expensive in terms of capital (or opportunity) costs, but also impose high
maintenance burdens on local authorities which many are unable to meet.
Finally, planning and building regulations add a third tier to the barriers obstructing
access to legal shelter. As McAuslan (1989) has noted in the case of Chennai,
(previously Madras) India “so concerned have the authorities been to close every
loophole against illegal development, corruption, exploitation of scarce resources, the
exercise, and therefore the possible wrongful or non-exercise, of discretion, that the
principal aim of the Madras Metropolitan Development Authority – to get orderly and
equitable development underway in Madras and its environs – has been lost site of”.
McAuslan also argues that planning itself has all too often been based on the needs
and interests of the political elite rather than the majority, a tendency which can actively
7
discourage low-income households from living in close proximity to more fortunate
groups except, of course, to proved them with services.
Ongoing research in six countries 2 has provided similar evidence of the extent to which
regulatory frameworks raise the barriers to accessing legal shelter to levels which most
poor households, an increasing proportion of middle-income groups, are unable to
overcome. As globalisation reduces the opportunities for government to directly control
land and housing markets, and accelerates de-regulation in key economic sectors, the
role of the regulatory framework in managing urban growth takes on a greater
importance, especially as it is one of the few policy instruments determined and
controlled by government. In Lesotho, for example, it has been found that more than a
dozen administrative steps need to be followed if a person is to meet all the legal
requirements to obtaining land. The system is highly centralised with all grant
applications requiring Ministerial approval. In Tanzania, 13 steps, taking seven or more
years, can elapse between the identification of an area for implementing a planning
scheme to the time letters of offer are issued. Each of these steps has its own internal
sub-steps.
The irony is that regulatory frameworks established to achieve planned urban
development have widely become a means of preventing this.
2
‘Regulatory guidelines for affordable shelter’ an ongoing research project directed by
Geoffrey Payne and Associates and funded by the UK Department for International
Development. The project includes case studies in Bolivia, India, Lesotho, South Africa,
Tanzania and Turkey.
8
Applying new approaches in Cambodia
A twin-track approach is presently under preparation in Cambodia in a number of urban
projects, one of which is being supported by Cities Alliance, GTZ and UN-Habitat3. In
this project, it was initially proposed to improve tenure security and living conditions for
all households in informal settlements by providing them with a Temporary Occupation
Licence similar to that used for informal businesses in Kenya. However, it was realised
that the administrative burden of identifying eligible families and issuing them all with
TOLs would have been excessive. It was therefore proposed to announce a Moratorium
on Relocations and Evictions (MORE), provisionally for a period of six months. This
would enable people to go to work in the morning, secure in the knowledge that their
home and possessions would still be there when they returned. The authorities would
then be able to use the time gained to agree criteria for determining which settlements
could be regularised and upgraded on a long term basis and identify sites for moving
the families of settlements considered unacceptable. Finally, longer term tenure options
could then be formulated for introduction at the end of the moratorium period.
At the same time, a regulatory audit was undertaken of planning regulations, standards
and administrative procedures to identify options for reducing the costs of new legal
housing developments and thereby reduce the need for informal settlements in the
3
The local consultant to the project is Mr Din Somethearith. He is supported by a
number of local advisers including Mr George Cooper and Dr B.H.S. Khemro. The
international consultant to the project is Geoffrey Payne.
9
future. This revealed a number of areas where modest short term changes and more
substantial longer term reforms could be beneficial (see Appendix 1 for details).
However, as John Lennon noted, life is what happens when you are busy making plans.
In the event, things moved rapidly and in May 2003, the Prime Minister announced a
plan to upgrade 100 settlements a year in Phnom Penh for the next five years.
Assuming a notional 100 families in each settlement (most have many more than this),
this will involve improving the conditions of 10,000 households annually. If individual
titles were to be allocated, this would involve issuing an average of one title every 12
minutes for five years assuming 50 weeks a year and 40 hours work a week (without
lunch or toilet breaks!)4. The administrative burden therefore remains a key
consideration, especially since the status of land ownership in some areas remains
unclear.
In the absence of clear criteria for determining which settlements are upgraded and
which are scheduled for relocation, there is a risk that pre-emptive action will be taken
to remove some settlements and that others will be selected for upgrading according to
political, rather than more objective, considerations. For these reasons, it was decided
to revive the proposed Moratorium on Relocations and Evictions (MORE) to provide
short term tenure security for all households and to introduce new forms of longer term
tenure in pilot projects for both upgrading and new urban housing.
4
The COFOPRI land titling programme in Peru claimed to have allocated 1 million titles
in four years, or an average of 250,000 a year. Again, assuming a 50-week working
year and a 40-hour week, this would have entailed COFOPRI issuing more than two
titles a second for 4 years. Although the COFOPRI programme was undoubtedly
successful in many ways, many titles were actually issued earlier by local authorities.
10
The audit confirmed that many of the planning regulations determining acceptability
were based on conditions applicable when Cambodia was a French colony and there
was no significant pressure on land. Thus, setbacks from railway lines, levels of ground
floor plot coverage, land use restrictions, road reservations and complex administrative
procedures for obtaining permissions and certificates, etc, were excessive given current
realities. In fact, it appears that some standards are even higher and more onerous than
those required in western Europe. The gap between regulations and realities has
inevitably been filled by the people themselves and land not allocated for productive use
has been extensively settled throughout Phnom Penh. As a result, only a small
proportion of the population even attempt to follow official procedures, thereby adding to
the national proportion of officially unplanned settlements and offsetting efforts to
upgrade the existing ones.
The research on tenure security and regulatory frameworks reinforced the conviction
that both subjects are central to the effective implementation of a twin-track approach to
upgrading existing settlements and developing new ones. These are, after all, two of the
major policy instruments directly controlled by central and local governments and
enforceable even where market forces are otherwise pre-eminent. Tenure and
regulatory reform also offer the prospect of achieving change at the scale required.
How can such an approach be implemented? The key initial consideration is to identify
local champions for change. The idea for the tenure moratorium was made by a local
11
official and taken up by the research team. The Prime Minister and the Governor of
Phnom Penh are both supportive of initiatives which can be seen to improve living
conditions for the majority whilst at the same time increasing local and international
investment in the local economy. Local offices of international agencies, particularly UNHabitat and GTZ, are supportive of opportunities to transfer innovative practices from
international experience. Likewise, local and international NGOs have combined to
exert pressure on government but also agreed to work with government in order to
effect change. The key is then to maximise synergies between all these actors.
Proposals for tenure
At the time of writing, it has been agreed that new forms of tenure will be tested in pilot
projects for upgrading and new development. Given the reservations about titling as the
main option for providing tenure security expressed above, and the limited capacity of
the land administration system, it has been proposed to introduce MORE as soon as
possible for all unauthorised settlements in Phnom Penh. The period proposed is for six
months. At the same time, it is proposed to introduce community land leases or trusts in
settlements scheduled for in-situ upgrading and tenure improvement.
Evidence from previous research (see Khemro, forthcoming 2004) demonstrated that
low-income households are modest in their tenure needs and do not necessarily require
titles as long as they can be guaranteed reasonable access to employment locations. It
is therefore proposed to introduce twelve -year community leases and ten-year sub-
12
leases to individual households. This is considered adequate to encourage those with
funds or access to credit to invest in home improvements without raising land values to
the level at which ‘downward raiding’ by higher income groups would become
widespread. This will also hopefully enable these areas to be accessible to future lowincome households if any existing residents leave. It is proposed that households pay a
modest amount for such leases, in return for which they would receive social facilities
and other improvements which they would help determine. At the termination of the
lease period, the community would then be entitled to one of three options: an extension
of the lease for a further ten year period on revised terms to be defined; upgrading to a
more long term or individual tenure system; or termination with compensation at full
market value at the date of termination for the improvements made to the land.
Given that it is unlikely that local authorities would possess sufficient funds to pay
compensation on more than a token number of cases where there was a genuine public
interest involved, this is considered sufficient to grant security of tenure to residents of
most unauthorised settlements without distorting urban land and housing markets or
imposing an excessive administrative burden on the urban authorities. The proposal has
received support from the Minister of Land Management, Urban Planning and
Construction, the Governor of Phnom Penh and other key stakeholders and it is hoped
to introduce it in pilot projects during the next few months.
When promoting the option of communal land leases, it was assumed that there would
be many examples in other countries from which the project team and local officials
13
could learn. Surprisingly, this proved not to be the case and despite efforts to identify
other examples only Community Land Trusts in Kenya and the Community Mortgage
Program in the Philippines, only one example has been found (see Mohit 2002). It has
therefore proved difficult to reassure officials and communities that the approach is
sound. It seems that most stakeholders, whether officials or residents, are reluctant to
put themselves in a position of risk, which may partly explain the popularity of titling as a
tenure option. To help overcome this fear of the unknown and the potential costs to all
involved if new approaches fail to deliver what is expected of them, it would be helpful if
UN-Habitat could strengthen its role in disseminating information on innovative tenure
options as part of the Global Campaign on Secure Tenure. It is understood that this is
being actively considered.
If all goes well, the introduction of communal land leases or trusts will go some way to
providing security of tenure for the low-income households living in unauthorised
settlements. When combined with participatory approaches to the provision of essential
utility networks, it is anticipated that the combination of legal and physical measures will
increase local confidence that the authorities are genuinely committed to their welfare.
This will help stimulate local investment in home and local improvements, especially if
the payments made for the lease are seen to generate additional provision of social
facilities and amenities.
The first step in this process is therefore to encourage the government to introduce
MORE in order to stabilise the present situation and buy time for developing longer term
14
options. These include the need to establish criteria for selecting those settlements
which are to be upgraded and those which will need to be relocated. Draft criteria to be
submitted for approval are attached in Appendix 2. It will be important to establish
sound criteria for selecting the settlements to be improved, and the sequence by which
such improvements are implemented, to avoid charges that the selection is based on
political considerations.
Proposals for regulatory reform
Since not all settlements are likely to be acceptable for long term upgrading, it will be
equally important to inform affected communities as soon as possible. This will enable
them to appeal against such decisions to the relevant authorities. This is where the
regulatory audit becomes relevant as a basis for revising urban planning regulations
and standards. For example, the current requirement that a reservation of 25 metres be
provided on both sides from the middle of a railway line in urban areas effectively
sterilises one hectare of land for every 150 metres of track which could otherwise be
perfectly acceptable for urban housing. Given that there are several hundred residential
plots already developed along the main railway line serving Phnom Penh (see Fig 1),
relaxing this arbitrary requirement could at a stroke make these settlements eligible for
upgrading rather than relocation.
15
Fig 1: Housing built along the railway line into Phnom Penh.
16
Fig 2: Relocated settlement outside the urban area of Phnom Penh5
In cases where appeals against relocation are rejected, it is important to provide both
the affected communities and the authorities with sufficient time to make alternative
arrangements. In the past, relocation has involved moving families to sites well outside
the urban area (see Fig 2), where many were unable to settle due to the lack of incomegenerating opportunities and even basic services. A vital component of future relocation
projects is therefore that sites be found which are within reasonable distance from
existing employment areas and public utilities. Identifying such unused land within the
urban area is therefore a priority task for the Municipality.
5
All photos by Dr Beng Socheat Khemro
17
Given the limited availability and increasing cost of urban land in Phnom Penh, it is
clearly important to put all undeveloped sites to efficient use and work is currently
underway by the Bureau of Urban Affairs in Phnom Penh Municipality to identify and
survey undeveloped sites suitable for infill development. A UN-Habitat study is also
being undertaken6 to assess the potential application of land sharing approaches to the
development of sites in private or state private ownership7. It is intended to develop
some pilot land sharing projects in the coming months and to combine these with
innovations in tenure and regulatory frameworks. Lessons learned as a result will then
provide a basis for changes at the urban scale and in other cities.
The regulatory audit can be of use in this respect by indicating which aspects of the
regulatory regime are presently impeding access to affordable legal shelter without the
need for external subsidies. Appendix 1 indicates the relevant planning standards,
regulations and administrative procedures which are presently constraining such access
and which therefore need to be relaxed or removed. Understandably, many officials
trained to assume that the existing standards and regulations exist to protect the public
interest may resist any change, but since the public interest can best be satisfied by
maximising access to legal shelter, it is proposed to introduce selected changes within a
limited number of pilot relocation projects. These can then be monitored over a five year
6
These studies are being undertaken by Paul Rabé, a consultant appointed by UNHabitat to advise the Municipality of Phnom Penh.
7
In Cambodia, land in public ownership is defined as either state public or state private
land. State public lands are government lands put to special government use, for
example for schools or parks, or lands that in their natural condition have some specific
public benefit, for example forests. State private lands are all state lands that are not
state public lands.
18
period and, if considered acceptable by all key stakeholders, including the residents,
can be gradually incorporated into the city-wide regulatory framework.
The key point of regulatory reform should be to reduce entry costs to new urban
housing in ways which provide sufficient security and options for long term incremental
improvements. This involves permitting the most efficient use of available land and
relaxing constraints o n the forms of development and uses to which people can put their
plots. Based on previous research at neighbourhood level (Davidson and Payne 2000)
project planners should aim to achieve 65 percent of developable land within private
use, ie as residential, commercial or industrial plots. Another 15 percent can then be
allocated for public or communal facilities, such as schools, health clinics and religious
centres, etc, leaving 20 percent for local roads and public open spaces. Since private
land areas will be self-financing, and public amenities should also be paid for by the
agencies providing them, only the 20 percent of public land will need to be funded by
private land users. This yields a ratio of about 30 percent of ‘unproductive’ to
‘productive’ private land. In cases where the total area of private land is 55 percent and
roads and public open space amounts to 30 percent, a situation common in many
planned urban developments, the ratio of ‘unproductive’ to ‘productive’ land increases to
about 54 percent, a substantial financial burden on residents, developers or the public
sector. How this objective is achieved will vary according to cultural, climatic and other
local considerations and the skill of developers or project planners. If sites selected for
new infill development can be planned according to these objectives, it is hoped that the
19
majority of all households which may need to be relocated can be re-housed in areas
near places of employment and with good access to services.
Conclusions
All of these proposals are the result of efforts to address the need to improve living
conditions for all residents in existing unauthorised settlements and to reduce the need
for future slum formation. They have little to do with global concerns as defined and
represented by Target 11 of the MDGs. In fact, for professionals operating at the
national or local level, which is the vast majority, an excessive focus on this target is in
danger of distorting our collective assessment of the true scale and nature of the urban
challenge facing us and of lowering our horizons in terms of what needs to be done. We
need to get back on track.
20
Bibilography
Davidson, F and Payne G (eds) (second edition 2000) ‘Urban Projects Manual’
Liverpool University Press Liverpool
B.S.H. Khemro (forthcoming 2004) ‘Improving tenure security for the urban poor in
Phnom Penh, Cambodia: An analytical case study’ in Habitat International
McAuslan, P (1989:30) ‘Land law, tenure and registration issues and options’ paper
presented at the Urban Land Development Seminar, World Bank, Washington DC
Mohit, Radhika Savant (2002) ‘A level playing field: Security of tenure and the urban
poor in Bangkok, Thailand’ in Payne, G (editor) ‘Land, Rights and Innovation: Improving
tenure security for the urban poor’ ITDG Publishing, London
Payne, G (2001) ‘Lowering the ladder: regulatory frameworks for sustainable
development’ Development in Practice, Vol 11 Nos 2 and 3, May pp 308-318
de Soto, Hernando (1989) ‘The Other Path: The invisible revolution in the Third World’
I.B.Tauris London
Struyk, R, Hoffman, M. and Katsura. H (1990) ‘The market for housing in Indonesian
cities’ The Urban Institute Press, Washington DC
Turner, J F C (1967) 'Barriers and Channels for Housing Development in Modernizing
Countries', Journal of the American Institute of Planners, Vol xxxiii, No 3;
Turner, J F C (co-edited, with Robert Fichter), (1972) ‘Freedom to Build, dweller control
of the housing process’ Macmillan, New York, and translated into Italian and Spanish
21
Appendix 1: Regulatory Audit Table, Phnom Penh, 2003.
Responsible
authority
Formal/Statutory
Degree of
Informal/Customary Constraint
Comments
1 2 3 4 5
Planning Standards
1. Plot: Minimum area
2. Plot: Minimum frontage
3. Plot: Minimum depth
n/a
n/a
n/a
No standard
No standard
No standard
Around 3m x 3m
3m
3m
4. Road width (RoW): Access MDLMUCC/BAU
3.50 m
< 3.50m (some areas)
5. Road width (RoW): Local
6. Type of road surface
7. Utilities: Water supply
8. Utilities: Garbage
collection and sanitation
3.50m
Bitumen/laterite
Pipe/well
< 3.50m (some areas)
laterite
Pipe/well
MDLMUCC/BAU
MDPT
Government/private
Private (Cintri)
Municipal dep of public
9. Utilities: Drainage
work and transportation
Government (EDC)/
10. Utilities: Electricity supply private
11. Utilities: Telecoms
Government/Private
12. Public open space per
ha: Total
BAU
13. POS: Primary Schools
n/a
14. Secondary Schools
n/a
15. POS: Religious centres
n/a
16. POS: Health clinics
n/a
17. POS: Public admin
n/a
18. POS: Community centres n/a
19. Ground building area
MDLMUCC/MPP
(shop house)
20. Ground building area
(villa house)
MDLMUCC/MPP
Formally
Informally
Existing and informal
Existing and new provided connection
Formal
Formal
Informal
Formal
No standard
No standard
No standard
No standard
No standard
No standard
No standard
75% of total area
50% of total area
22
No standard
No standard
No standard
No standard
No standard
No standard
No standard
Over use of ground area
of building
Over use of ground area
of building
Mostly not respected
Mostly not respected
Planning Regulations
1. Floor Area Ratio (max)
MLMUPC
MPP
2. Building setbacks: Front
MDLMUCC/MPP
3. Building setbacks: Side
MDLMUCC/MPP
4. Building setbacks: Rear
MDLMUCC/MPP
5. Height (max permitted)
6. Land use controls/zoning
7. Density Levels: Minimum
8. Density Levels: Maximum
9. Boundary definition (by
type)
10. Public health
requirements (ventilation,
pollution)
> 3,000m2
< 3,000m2
> 3,000m2
< 3,000m2
4m
No set back or 2m setback
Sometimes not followed
Mostly < 2m
Mostly not respect
2m
Mostly < 2m
Mostly not respect
MDLMUCC/MPP
Variable
Varied
BAU
n/a
n/a
Not clear
No regulation
No regulation
Not clear
No regulation
No regulation
n/a
n/a
n/a
MDLMUCC/MPP
11. Fire regulations
MDLMUCC/MPP
12. Environmental
MDLMUCC/MPP
regulations
13. Septic tank for building
floor area less than 80 m2
MDLMUCC
14. Reserved land along both
sides of railway in urban area
15. Construction along dikes
MPP
to protect city from flood
Administrative procedures
by relative costs
1. Housing construction
permission:
Window with area at least
1.5m2
Road: 3.5 m at least
Noise pollution
Varied
Road less than 3.5m or
sometimes no road for fire
rescue
Not respected
3 m3 (height at least 1.5m) Smaller or not provided
25m from the middle of
railway
Around 2m
Not allowed
Already built
• Legal payment tax for land Cadastral office
Around R900-R1,800/m2
Did not pay
• Inform Sangkat office
Sangkat office
Informal payment
Informal payment
• Inform Khan office
Khan office
Informal payment
• Ask permission
DLMUCC
Informal payment
Informal payment
Did not apply for
permission
23
• Land measuring and
reporting
• Construction expert
Informal payment
Did not apply for
permission
Did not apply for
permission
Did not apply for
permission
Did not apply for
permission
Did not apply for
permission
MPP
45 days
Build without permission
Not exist
Not exist
Phumbal
MDLMUCC
Informal payment
Informal payment
• Checking construction site Phumabal
Informal payment
• Checking drawing
Informal payment
• Approval
2. Obtaining permission for
commencement of
construction
3. Obtaining connections to
services
5. Building which is not
require for construction
permission (minimum
building floor area)
MDLMUCC
All offices in MPP and
Deputy Governor
Sangkat/ Khan
Not exist
50 m2
More than 50 m2
Sources: 1. Sub-Decree Number 85, December 1997
2. Government Prakas (Circulation) Number 06 on alleviation of anarchic land grabbing
3. Other interviews with various peoples and institutions
24
Appendix 2: Draft criteria for determining settlements to be upgraded and
those to be relocated.
Acceptable for
upgrading (land
sharing and in-situ
upgrading)
Land ownership without legal right residing on:
1. Public park
2. Public open space
3. Small piece of public land
4. Government Ministries’ lands
5. State private land
6. Private land (individual/company)
7. Temple ground
8. Prime commercial land
Criteria
Government land use planning priority
1. The area is planned for public park
2. The area is planned for road
infrastructure
3. The area is planned for sewerage
system
4. The area is planned for commercial
development
5. The area is planned for industrial
development
6. The area is planned for residential
development
Geographical/physical vulnerability of the site
1. The area is located on the sewerage
system
2. The area is located too close to or on the
dumping site.
3. The area locates on public pavement
4. The area locates too close to water
supply sources (rivers, lakes)
5. The area locates on the bank of floodprotected dike.
6. The area is located along river
7. The area locates around lakes
8. The area is located along railway lines
9. The area is located on roof-top
10. Rooms in old buildings
For relocation