Impact of gated Communities on Bangalore city Development

Gated communities prevent public access around the clock, to their own private land. Fulbright Scholar Renaud LE GOIX Examines Gated Communities in Southern California in a theses submitted by him in July 2003. These gated communities include their own private utilities like gardens, community centers and even star Hotels behind these gates. He however refers to them as a manifestation of “Urban Pathology”. Pathology a medical term means a study of diseases. He also considers them as public space being privatized.
The point I would like to make right away is, “public place being privatized” thought is a myth. On the other hand it is in the public interest that the honest, capable, and well reputed builders of Bangalore should be nurtured and utilized for a planned growth of the city. Urban pathology is also a misnomer. The pathology part is universally applicable to showing off or is it same as making a “statement”!

“Palm Meadows” currently no 1 address in Bangalore, developed by Adarsh Builders contains Tennis courts, a club house, star hotel with swimming pool etc. It has 500 villas built on plots starting with sizes of 2400 sft to 10000 sft. These are exclusive Villas restricted to two floors. Palm Meadows project one of the earliest started in Bangalore, in the last decade of 20th century. Adarsh has something called signature Villas, which is meant to be life time “statement” one would like to make.

When city fathers of Bangalore gave these big chunks of real estate to builders it was a moot point whether or not it should have been given. In fact they went “head over heals” to provide the developers, water of the river cauveri and electricity. Now the BBMP is not in such an envious situation any more. Hope fully the BBMP will be more frugal in the future about the utilization of these scarce resources.

With the above discussions it is easy to comprehend part of gated communities in the development of a city. The most important point that I would like to make at this point is that the BDA should learn an important lesson from these developers and have a relook at their Open communities

Public Vs Private Transport

On September 1 2008, Abhishek Upadhyay wrote that “People should be encouraged to use Public Transport.” I was busy on “Praja” work consequently loosing some time on developing Bangalore on line.

Yes Abhishek that is number one priority for us in Bangalore for that matter the whole globe. This is because the development is taking place at ever increasing pace which is mind boggling. No design can cater for ever increasing number of private vehicles.

However there are several ways to handle the situation of incresed number of vehicles:

1. Have some roads earmarked for only buses.
2. Have dedicated bus lanes instead in all roads
3. Discourage private vehicles by introducing congestion tax.
4. Remove subsidy on fuel totally on private vehicles.
5. Have additional local exclusive Cycle / pedestrian Tracks.
6. Strict Zoning in the future Bangalore city development.
7. Move towards Zoning in existing areas of Bangalore
8. Go for multi modal transport including Metro, Manos and suburban Rail
9. No parking of private Vehicles on public land, including roads
10. Close entry of all residential area roads on to arterial roads, except a few.

Bangalore Traffic Woes, avoid ad hoc solutions please!

Bangalore, keeping in pace with other cities in the world, has grown exponentially over the past half a century. The Key question while planning traffic solutions for such a growing city obviously would be “how to account for possible future growth?” Bangalore has a very good example in the Kempe Gouda Towers. Kempe Gouda had in his wisdom estimated the boundaries of Bangalore and built the Towers known after him.

The lessons, what we in our time should learn are:

1 The boundaries of a growing city are not absolute. They will keep extending.
2 To take care of moving boundaries, the planning should be insensitive to it.
3 Such a methodology, insensitive to the boundaries, should solely cater to the current community traffic, without being affected by its future growth.
4 This requires a through analysis of the basic requirements of a community for (a) its daily needs and (b) its daily activities, at present as well as in the future.
5 The key now is to look forward for these requirements as and when they come up. This new requirements should be catered for without affecting what ever is on the ground.
6 Is such a design possible at all? Is there an example available from which we could draw some principles for such a growth tolerant design?

The examples are plenty in nature. A Tree for example germinates from a seed and grows being stationary at a location in huge proportion to its beginning. The whole blue print is incorporated in its seed for future Proliferation to newer locations. The Human being also grows from a few Kgs to his final mass in due course and so on.

Now coming to the current issue of Bangalore Traffic woes, it is required to address ourselves to Bangalore Traffic as a whole and not piecemeal to be specific. If we solve the problem at one junction the problem is transferred to the next junction and so on. Taking a leaf out of nature’s book there should be no hold up of traffic at all any where. The traffic lights should be made irrelevant. There should be no crossings in major roads at all. All major Roads should be one ways throughout the city. The city means that which is bounded by outer ring road. We should keep in mind this is a temporary assumption.

It is possible to make this model work. The additional incentive is if we make this model work for Bangalore it will be a unique experience in the whole world probably!

Indian Institute of Science Alumni meet

To day I attended the IISc Alumni meet held at "TERI" in Domlur. This venue was the first to be chosen out side the IISc campus. IISc being in the midst of celebrating its Centenary year, this Alumni meet had a greater significance. I attended the meeting as the venue was very near to the place where we live. The organizers were very happy to note that their decision brought the expected result. IISc which undoubtedly is a premium institute of its kind in our country has upgraded its view on its Alumni Association by appointing one of its serving senior faculties to head the association. The break fast was sumptuous with Rava Idli, Masala Dosa, Upma and coffee with Badam Halva to boot. The Quality was that of MTR too.
Professor Dattaguru opened the meet and gave an update on the activities. Ram Akella, Professor and Director, Centre for Knowledge, Information Systems, and Management of Technology, University of California, Silicon Valley Centre, who happened to be visiting Bangalore was very happy to share his thoughts.
The organizers in the year of centenary celebrations had a special invitee to this meet. He was V. Ravichander former member, Bangalore Agenda Task force (BATF).
Mr. Ravichander spoke on BATF which was formed in the SM Krishna days. Those were very difficult days as such, with Veerappan. After Veerappan terrorism has gone to the next dimension keeping in pace with the Internet! SM Krishna a computer savvy Chief Minister Set up BATF. As Ravichander told every CEO takes pride in one up man ship, government too is of no exception. BATF was wound up for good in no time with the change of the government.
With the brief talk which I had with Mr. Ravichander, I got the answer to my doubt as to why it was necessary to change from Self Assessment Scheme (SAS) system of Property tax to that of Capital Value System (CVS):

1. It was BATF according to him who proposed SAS, in line with Income Tax (IT) Assessment, which we file every year. We file our income tax return as per the current IT levied by the government from time to time. There are charted accountants who help us to file our Tax returns as per law. The onus is on the IT department to maximize the revenue for the government by unearthing tax evaders by working hard and honestly. It is a crime to evade taxes. This system of putting the onus on the tax payer to first file the returns as per the requirements avoids the IT department’s indulgence in colluding with the tax payer for personal gains. How this is different for the city corporation when BATF proposed SAS which is nothing different than IT returns Scheme which Citizens are following through out the country? Why should Bangalore Corporation have accepted SAS only for 5 years? Did they require 5 years to do research over and above the self appointed expert committee BATF?
   
2. This clearly shows the fallacy of the law makers, who want the corporation to be on the bargaining side by having the opportunity to collude with the public for obvious reasons.
   
3. At that time when BATF whom the then government had appointed, proposed SAS probably they were in a fix to reject. So it appears they accepted it for 5 years as a law.
   
4. After the 5th year SAS would become illegal automatically!
   
5. The % of honest to not so honest citizens is an astonishing 40:60 ratio
   
6. It requires hard work for the corporation to raise enough money.
   
7. Citizens are not averse to the fact that Government requires more money for Development.
   
8. The use principle, comes in handy for this purpose.

Ravichander also mentioned that traffic optimization was also burning issue addressed by the BATF, apart from other issues like infrastructure. He talked about the Metro rail project and Bus route optimization etc.
After the talk was over all the Alumni were so excited that the time flue without any one noticing other than the organizers.

1. There was an excellent suggestion that bus fares should be subsidized which would provide enough incentive for people to use it instead of using their own transport. There is no point in having too many vehicles and optimize the traffic.
   
2. Develop Satellite towns on the Chennai model etc.

The rain god had to intervene when the meeting abruptly ended.