Appraisal of detailed area plan and development of a revised conceptual plan for Dhaka city

Abstract

Dhaka the capital and largest city of Bangladesh is one of the fastest-growing megacities of the world which is suffering from traffic congestions, waterlogging, housing shortage, pollution, waste management, utility services, inadequate recreational facilities, and many other problems. To mitigate these problems RAJUK launched many development projects from its inception. But none of these are successful. Rajuk’s one of the recent initiatives was the Detailed Area Plan (DAP), the lowest tier in the three-level planning process of Dhaka Metropolitan Development Plan-DMDP (1995-2015). It was basically a local level plan which is supposed to illustrate details of the proposed Landuse zoning, infrastructure and utility services including the 3-D vision of each segment of the local sector. The stages of DAP preparation included geo-referencing of mauza maps, different types of surveys, consultation with stakeholders, draft plan preparation, public hearing, and final plan preparation. But after all these initiatives DAP is accused as a failure, because of the wrong time frame and vague deliverables. The objectives of this research were to assess DAP 2010 to evaluate the physical development planning method of DAP for DMDP to find its shortcomings and to propose a pragmatic DAP approach which is contextual and implementable. A functional and implementable sample concept DAP for BUET has been presented that shows essential parts of a DAP. During the study, it was found that socio-economic survey, physical feature survey, topographic survey and land use survey were done during the period of 2005-2006. DAP is supposed to be launched almost simultaneously with the structure plan. But in this case, DAP was launched in 2010 with many deviations that had already happened in DMDP 1995-2015. Delayed launching itself was a great failure. This idea of initiating DAP was good. There were a lot of limitations found after evaluating the DAP report and database. Therefore, the study tried to figure out some idea for the development of a functional and implementable DAP for Dhaka City. After reviewing the international concepts of DAP, a guideline for doable was prepared and a checklist is developed for the evaluation of DAP. On the basis of the checklist, DAP by RAJUK was assessed. Then an application Model is developed on a case study area which was Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Polashi, Dhaka area to provide an idea about DAP. The model gives an idea of up to what extent a DAP should be worked out to make it a success. This model may be followed to make DAP for other areas of Dhaka city or any other urban areas of Bangladesh. It is important and necessary to launch DAP at an appropriate time. On the other hand DAP is basically an urban design initiative which should describe all sort of detail information regarding infrastructure, utility, road, street furnishing, streetscape, landscape etc. related detail description i.e. location of water network, drainage, parking, lighting, open spaces etc. up to 3-D built-environment of user level. This study would help prepare future DAP and implement at an appropriate time frame with responsive urban design details. The appropriate urban design of Dhaka will result in a livable city.