Baner Balewadi Development Plan

The Development Plan for the 23 villages merged into the PMC limits was submitted to the State Government for approval. The State Government has deleted all reservations for public amenities, without giving reasons. This is likely to have serious implications for the nature of development and resulting quality of life for people in this area / connected to this area.

Citizens have 60 days to provide their views on the modifications - the deadline is 2 December 2008. Read about the Baner Balewadi DP and the Call to Action for citizens at http://government.wikia.com/wiki/Baner_Balewadi_DP

DC Rules Minutes of Meeting 20 Sep 2008

Revision of Development Plan (1987) of Pune City
Minutes of the Meeting on DC Rules Sub-Group
Date & Time: - 20th Sept, 2008 at 3.30 pm

Meeting of the sub-group on Development Control Rules of Revision of Development Plan (1987) was held in the conference hall of PMC

Mr. R.N. Gohad welcomed the members & stated that as per decided in the 6th Steering committee meeting, the various D.C. Rule subgroups are reformed into one group under the chairmanship of Shri V.W. Deshpande. The important discussions held in the meeting hall are as follows.

Shri Gohad presented the copy of comparison table on Banglore DCR’s as decided in last meeting.

Shri Vikas Bhandari stated that along with Shri Kembhavi & Shri Raje, they have prepared a draft guideline for the DCR’s to be prepared. In that they incorporated various aspect to make the DCR’s transparent & user friendly. He gives briefs of the DCR guideline, explained the objectives, methodology, & strategies to be formed to prepare DCR’s. He has circulated copies of work done by their group.

Mr. V.W. Deshpande stated that before formulating DCR’s we have to make policies & strategies considering growth trend of the city. For that various survey data & its analysis is required. With the help of this data we can predict growth trend of the city & then we can formulate the idealistic DCR’s.

Mr. Raje suggested that they are working on three important categories of Rules as Mandatory, Optional & Incentive type of Rules & they suggested different color coding for each type of Rules.

There a discussion was made on various important issues like further DCR’s- is a tool for achieving goals?, sustainability norms, implacability of DCR, densification & infrastructure, incentivisation of areas which are not developing, objectives of FSI, etc.

It was decided that the draft of the D. C. rules in preparation by Shri. Vikas Bhondari, Shri. Kembhavi, Shri. Raje may be complete shortly & will make available to the group for discussion and finalization.

Shri. Phatak Ex. Chief Planner, MMRDA is called for association of this group. He emailed certain points which are mentioned below:-

I. The technical aspects of DCR’s related to structural public health and other engineering aspects can be decided with reference to NBC

II. Similarly the procedural aspects including use of IT and e-governance in the process of development control could also be independently pursued

III. However other aspects can not be decided independently the objectives. For example if the objective is to support & promote car based travel, the parking regulations will be different from those that serve the strategy of promoting public transport and restraining use of private vehicles

IV. Planning objectives and strategies therefore need to be decided first before launching the DCR exercise. Please do not follow the example of Mumbai by concentrating on DCR’s alone without having a bigger picture in mind

V. I do not know whether any terms of reference have been formulated for the group. If not it would be a good staring point.

VI. I would be able to meaningfully participate only when these issues are clarified.

Certain plans are there for discussion which will be necessary for formulation & proposed changes in the Development Regulations.

Shri. Shirish Patel one of the leading architect in Mumbai has also associated with this group. However he can not attend the meeting which scheduled on 20.09.2008.

Mr. Ranjit Gadgil highlighted some important points on the discussions held in the meeting are as follows:

1. It is important that the basic purpose of FSI should be made clear. This has an important policy decision implication. If FSI is a tool that is used to control the density of persons so as to ensure that there is proper provision of basic amenities, then the policy of greater FSI for low income housing is contary to this principle. This is a double impact since low income houses are smaller, hence more tenements are accommodated in the same FSI and low income family sizes also tend to be bigger. This point has been explained by Mr. Shirish Patel and should be discussed at the next meeting.

2. The FSI restriction also is linked ultimately to the provision of basic services. Basic services are made possible either by the private sector or the Municipality. It was stated at the meeting that development funds collected by the PMC are used specifically for improvement of infrastructure in that "zone". It is important that we collect information about how much money has been raised in these zones and how much infrastructure has actually been provided. It was also pointed out that this scheme has the disadvantage of skewed development since better developed areas tend to get more funds which in turn allows for greater development.

3. It was also decided to create norms for eco-housing that are in-line with incentives/dis-incentives framework being adopted. Essentially depeding on the usage, energy consumption per sq m should be decided. Buildings that exceed this consumption would be charged higher taxes/fees. This should force builders to seek more eco-friendly friendly designs, which is currently not being done. Special reference was made to the statement of Hon'ble Energy Minister, Shri Dilip Walse-Patil at a meeting at MCCIA in this regard.

4. It was also decided that upon distribution of draft DC Rules by Mr. Bhandari, Ranjit Gadgil and Sujit Patwardhan will provide the appropriate measures keeping in mind the sustainable transport policies adopted by the PMC.

5. The issue of TP Schemes was also raised since it has been generally agreed upon that it is the preferred method of planning whether for re-development or green field development. This matter must be raised in the larger group, since it will have a bearing on the DC Rules.

It is proposed to arrange further meeting after 15 days when the draft of the proposed changes in DCR completed by Shri. Vikas Bhandari, Shri. Kembhavi and Shri. Raje will be circulated to the members. The Schedule of the next meeting will be informed a week before to all the members. The meeting concluded at 5.45 p.m. with the vote of thanks of the PMC.

Present

Mr. Vidyadhar Deshpande

Mr. R. N. Gohad

Mr. Vikas Bhandari

Mr. Shirish Kembhavi

Mr. Rajiv Raje

Mrs. Anagha Paranjpe

Mr. Ranjit Gadgil

Mr. Sujit Patwardhan

Mr. Vinay Zagade

Mr. Mahendra Pardeshi

Mr. Shivprasad Murari

Ms. Nital Kapse

Connect Pune meeting on 20 Aug 2008

The Pune wiki is at http://government.wikia.com/wiki/Pune

Actionable Items
1. Wiki training sessions are to be arranged by
- BIVEER (Katraj) Thanks to Dr Erach Bharucha and his team

- Seed Infotech (Erandwane) Thanks to Ajay Phatak, Narendra Barhate and his team and

- Zensar (Kharadi) Thanks to Lavanya Jayaram and her team
on Sundays.

Those interested in a training session on 31st Aug from 10 am to 1 pm are requested to send in their registrations in the following format to sanskriti.menon@gmail.com

Preferred location:

Name,Email, Phone number:

The wiki training is expected to train participants as trainers and provide the basics of:

- adding/ editing content - Devnagari content; images, video, audio, tables, etc;

- wiki etiquette;

- inappropriate content;

- categories etc.

The training will involve each person creating/editing a page of a vision for Pune Wiki

- What should Pune wiki accomplish? The training should also include a page seeding what you would like to accomplish.

2 If possible, volunteer to be wiki trainers, provide wiki training space etc - the Pune wiki will be as good as we can make it

3. All who attended - to spread the word amongst your friends and colleagues to contribute content to the wiki,

4. Puzzle and hypothesis on the Pune Wiki: Dr Madhav Gadgil will lead an effort to compile, collect and seed questions and hypothesis that could lead to general interest, involvement and even student projects on the wiki.

5. Vision dialogue on the Pune wiki to be furthered by Dr. Erach Bharucha and his team, particularly encouraging student visions. They will also help reach out and connect to other educational institutions.

Minutes
1. Presentations were made on possible projects (and some experiences) in waste, mobility, energy, biodiversity and how students might take these up (existing spaces in school and college curricula). These are being uploaded in pdf form on the Talk page of the Pune ENVIS wiki page. http://government.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Pune_Environment_Information_System

2. There was discussion on the nature of educational projects and creating involvement, not compliance from students. This is an area for continued thinking. Some students may be more attracted to projects where they can see they are contributing to change or bringing about change; others may like to posit hypothesis and work in a 'research' mode. Thus, projects may be related to data collection feeding into a larger information system, hypothesis based leading to knowledge generation, action projects etc. Students should also be encouraged to do projects relating to visioning rather than only problem solving.

3. Will data lead to action or change? - data and information alone may not produce action or change but they are key ingredients, and data converted into useful information can spur action. The wiki will serve to connect people around key initiatives. It will enable share initiatives with others. This can lead to exciting ways to use the Pune wiki platform to connect and transform Pune.

4. Localized information models/ frameworks need to be developed - waste (KKPKP), transportation (Ashok), energy (Prayas), ecosystems (Dr Madhav Gadgil) are some that will be developed in the near future through a combination of physical meeting and then in a wiki mode.

5. Uploading existing information from student projects could also be undertaken- BIVEER and others to explore the possibility.

Dr. Anupam Saraph, Ph.D., Chief Information Officer, Pune City
url: http://www.linkedin.com/in/AnupamSaraphcell: 99237 56977

DC Rules Meeting 26 July, 2008

DC Rules Group Meeting held on Saturday July 26, 2008 at BNCA

The following attended the meeting:

1. Ar Rajiv Raje

2. Ar Shirish Kembhavi

3. Ar Poorva Keskar

4. Mr R N Gohad, with the members of the ELU team

5. Mr Dinesh Girolla

6. Ar Anagha Paranjape

The meeting discussed the following:

1. The points discussed in the July 12 Meeting on Urban Renewal and incentives (via FSI) for plot agglomeration in the congested areas was discussed further. It has been decided that case studies will be done in each category of plot size to check for feasibility issues etc.

2. Discussion also happened on the point of progressively Incentivising TDR use in the outer zone, thereby further ensuring euitable TDR loading in the outer zones of B, C and D, prioritizing zones that face lesser development pressures today.

3. It was discussed that while TDR is being loaded in the outer zones, it will be necessary to look at each zones 'carrying capacity' in terms of various parameters including water availability, road and transport infrasrructure, sanitation infrasstructure etc.

4. The possibility of introducing marginal variations in the DC Rules for various PLANNING SECTORS in the city to promote and enhance the individual character of each sector. These Planning Sectors shall be formed based on various criteria such as landuse character, population dynamics, type of existing building development, environmentally sensitive properties etc. These criteria are to be dicussed in details in further meetings.

5. Marginal variations in the DC Rules in the various sectors will then take into consideration the individual character of each sector to address variations in urban design, special cases, curltural adn heritage significant structures, environmental considerations such as riverfront, lake front, forestland, BDP frontage etc.

6. The following preparation is to be done before the next meeting which is planned on Thursday August 14 , 2008 at BNCA. 2 pm to 4 pm.

a) The DC Rules for fives cities are to be read and analysed based on specific points (to be circulated by Ar Shirish Kembhavi). The five cities and the respective readers are as follows: Mr Gohad - Bangalore; Dinesh - London; Ar Raje - Singapore; Poorva - DDA; Anagha - Hyderabad.

b) Ar Rajiv Raje to circulate the synposis of the DC Rules for Pune that he has compiled. Additionally, he has to circulate the Hyderabad DC Rules in soft form.

Reminder to Mr Pawaskar: Please issue to us the letters that 'appoint' us to work with the DP Steering Committee at the earliest.

Input from Ar Shirish Kembhavi

A format for making a comparison of Key DC rules prevalent in other cities as decided has been prepared and is available at http://government.wikia.com/wiki/Development_Control

The last meeting was to determine the threshold of growth of the City with Water supply as the criteria. It was discussed that we need to find out what is the total water supply to the City including ground water and thereby determine the population that could be sustained.

Mr.Girolla suggested that the sewage received at the treatment plats can be an indicator of the consumption and thereby the information could be interpolated. This being an important aspect, We need to find this out.

ESR Framework

Pune produces an Environmental Status Report (ESR) every year, and it has done so since 1997. This is mandated in the state-level legislation (the BPMC Act) following the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act and the Twelfth Schedule.

The development, writing and production of the ESR is usually tendered out. The Pune ESR has been prepared over various years by Mashal, Change Re-engineering, PATPL, and in recent years by the PMC Air Quality Cell. Since the approach and detail in the different chapters is quite varied, it appears that there is no continuing information framework for the ESR as a whole or for the individual sections.

In order to make the ESR a more useful / usable document, some reorganization of the ESR has been suggested by the Pune Citizens Environment Forum (various meetings):

1. The purpose of the ESR has to be clear
1. It should reveal the health status of the population linked to the state
   of services and the environment
2. It should provide information support for investment and management
   decisions for the PMC
3. It should serve as an important input into the annual budgeting and
   planning exercises of the PMC
4. It should be a tool for citizens' use as well, serving both as an
   information/ education resources, as well as a way for tracking improvements
2. It should have some overview chapters for a comprehensive picture of the city, including key sectors
3. Certain data sets have to be presented disaggregated at ward-level so that actions needed to be taken by corporators are clear, and these can in turn be linked to ward level municipal budgets and plans
4. It is important to create the framework, even if data is not there. The purpose of this is to identify data gaps and put in place appropriate data collection systems
5. Descriptive material, detailed data tables, references etc are valuable information and the ESR is a good way of making such information publicly available and these may be included. However, the key actionable aspects may be presented as a separate section for facilitating monitoring and follow-up
6. Information, such as flights operating out of Pune and list of Malls, which has appeared in the ESR of some years may be removed from the report as it is not directly relevant. However, a lot of the development-related data could still be included, albeit in the form of appendices.
7. The ESR will need to draw upon data apart from the official data gathered and provided by PMC departments on municipal services and functions
8. Which data is gathered and reported by the PMC depts. needs to be looked into, as they may not necessarily be collecting some critical information – this depends on what goals (short and long term) are being set for improvements – for instance if reducing energy use is a goal, then data related to energy use in specific service provision will have to be tracked
9. In any case the Key Performance Indicators for PMC depts exercise initiated by Janwani should link with the ESR preparation work; the KPI work in Pune is also linked to the Benchmarking of Municipal Services initiated by JNNURM
10. This means that citizens, academic institutions, independent organizations, NGOs etc can also and should contribute information
11. A system to receive and categorize information needs to be created for this
12. Information collection/ compilation/ review etc can happen year round
13. The ESR should be available on the internet – creating wikis may be a useful way to do this

'''Which indicators?'''
Draft frameworks have been developed for biodiversity and water. These are available under the respective Work Themes in this blog

The CEROI set prepared by UNEP GRID Arendal may also give useful insights [http://www.ceroi.net/ City Environment Reports on the Internet]

DC Rules Meeting 12 July 2008

MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE D.C.RULES STUDY GROUP MEETING
HELD IN THE OFFICE OF AR. RAJIV RAJE ON SATURDAY 12TH JULY, 2008.

A] The following were present :
Mr. Dinesh Girolla – Representative of the PMC DC Rules Committee
Ar. Vikas Bhandari – Member of the PMC DC Rules Steering Committee
Ar. Pushkar Kanvinde – Director, NIASA, and PCEF Member
Ar. Rajiv Raje – IIA Pune Representative and PCEF Member
Ar. Shirish Kembhavi – AESA Pune Representative
Ar. Anagha Paranjpe – PCEF Co-ordinator for DC Rules Committee.
Mr. Ranjit Gadgil – Director, Janawani, and Member PCEF & PTTF

B] The following points were discussed in the meeting:

1. The general structure of DC Rules in Pune City and the constraints in application were discussed in general. It was pointed out by Ar.Vikas Bhandari, that there was a need to remove the “extra flab” in the DC rule book – to remove the unnecessary, irrelevant and inoperable regulations. He highlighted several such Rules in the current Rule book which were redundant and required to be deleted.

2. Ar. Vikas Bhandari also emphasised on the need to make the TONE of the rules
“ POSITIVE ”. For instance, instead of a rule saying “ aaa should not be LESS than bbb…”, the phrasing should always be that “ aaa should be MORE than bbb …” .This will induce a
more POSITIVE response in the adoption and application of Rules.

3. Shri.Dinesh Girolla suggested making a comparison of key development rules as are prevalent in major indian cities along with a few overseas examples of model cities, only to get an overview of the way in which issues have been handled elsewhere. Rules of Delhi Municipal Corporation were already circulated for this purpose and the Rules of Bhopal City were handed over to Shri.Girolla for study. It was suggested by Mr. Girolla that comparison of Development Control rules and its impact on the development of those cities for various cities such as Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Singapore and Tokyo to be done. Also, the similarities and future trend of growth between Pune and these cities to be studied.

4. Ar.Vikas Bhandari presented a workable scheme for revitalisation of the Core City by providing an incentive based system which encourages land pooling. It was agreed that this would help in a much better urban fabric in the core city, with more civic amenities, and create Open Spaces in areas which needed them most. A tabular format of the consolidated rules suggested by Ar. Vikas Bhandari in this unique scheme is enclosed herewith in attachment.

5. Shri.Dinesh Girolla suggested that a threshold of ONE ACRE ( approx 4000 Sq.M ) be set in the core city for application of this concept, and rules of non congested area be applied
for such plot with increased FSI being the incentive. There was a counter-suggestion, however, that if an upward sliding scale be adopted as suggested by Ar. Vikas Bhandari, more properties would opt for amalgamation to avail of the incentives – which would be beneficial for the city.

6. Ar. Kembhavi has undertaken the task of splitting the current DC rule book into THREE segments viz. Administrative Rules, Layout & Building Rules and Rules for Services – as a primary exercise for the new structure.

7. There was a discussion on merging all premium paid built-up areas into the basic permissible FSI - as has been done at Bangalore - in order to simplify the process. The pros and cons of the system were discussed and generally found to be promising. This concept would be explored further in detail. It was also pointed out that this idea should not again bring restriction on the open areas within a building.

8. Ar.Rajiv Raje suggested that the new rules should also be categorized into THREE categories or Classes viz. A, B, and C, wherein, Category-A rules would be mandatory to all and sacrosanct - not to be touched or modified, except with a statutory Sect.37 Modification by
the Government. Category-B Rules would be flexible within a RANGE – with options available against payment of premiums to PMC. Such premiums would be treated as payment of compensation paid to the city for availing of some flexible non-detrimental relaxations in rules. Category-C category rules would be completely optional, but highly incentive based. These would allow further non-detrimental concessions in construction, in lieu of proportionate benefits offered for the city without any price tags. This concept would be examined in more detail later.

9. There was an overall concern expressed by all on the issue of parking and various ways to mitigate the problem. Ranjit Gadgil highlighted the issues involved and several options were discussed without any conclusive course of action. The issue is flagged for more discussions.

10. Ar.Bhandari discussed the mobilisation plan for the city and his views on the same. Shri. Girolla was requested to provide an integrated map of old PMC limits and the extended areas to facilitate a more detailed explanation of the concepts and subsequent further discussion.

11. It was agreed unanimously that the DC rules are not an exercise in isolation, but needs to be closely integrated with the physical planning exercise The framework of Rules should be directed to achieve the VISION of the development plan. Ar. Raje cited the lesson given by City Planner Shirish Patel of Ahmedabad where a concept of Density Zoning and its control through DC Rules is in practice. Similar use of DC Rules could be made in Pune to provide a suitable DIRECTION to the inevitable growth in the next 20 years, instead of being just a regulatory tool.

12. It was felt that while the exercise of the ELU is on, an exercise of assessing and recording the infrastructure available in all areas, and future plans if any for the same, also be recorded to facilitate future planning.

The meeting concluded with a decision to meet every week for further discussions. The date, time and venue of weekly meetings will be co-ordinated and communicated by Anagha.

Mobility in the City

Do you have an idea or experience to share on how your work place or neighbourhood has addressed or could contribute to improving mobility in Pune? Do write in ...

Here is an article from the July 26 08 issue of Outlook Business on mobility in our cities
http://www.outlookbusiness.com/outlook/26072008/home.aspx (see page 51)

with a special mention of the Pune Traffic and Transportation Forum at

http://www.outlookbusiness.com/inner.aspx?editionid=49&articleid=1874&catgid=3&subcatgid=894