AN URGENT NEED FOR NATIONAL LAND USE PLANNING LAW AND POLICY

Nusrat Bibi
Land is a fragile, scarce, limited, precious and the most vital resource for any nation and serves as a
fundamental base for citizen’s activities. The priority of public welfare goals in land use plans such as
productivity, range, timber, minerals, water shed management, wildlife, scenic, historical, and
environmental values for future generations too must be considered superior to private interest. There
must be planning for preservation of natural resources, protection of healthy and cultural living
environment and also planning for balanced development on national lands. Goals, objectives and
means for achieving it, must be established by the national Law making Institutes as a guideline for
public and private land use and management rather than by individuals either by hiring expensive
consultants or by searching the donor agencies. Also the Law should safeguards the individuals’
responsibilities of land use in the social and economic viability of the land market by involvement of the
local, provisional and national government in any transaction of the land through approval from the
cabinet.

We see the dire consequences of haphazard use of land by our ruling class in Motor Ways and in
construction of Cancer Hospitals specifically and by the private developers generally that harmed our
most precious environment and fertile agricultural lands, prices hike in the basic commodity of food,
unavailability of dairy products, more poverty, sprawl and inefficient economic situation and more
unhealthy society due to the lack of laws and policy of land use planning in our country. Our cities are
expended without any planning and every year roads are diversified instead of proper planning for city
transit and the required infrastructure. Many reports on net reflect the havoc of inefficiency of our
government in establishing the regularity support of national land use planning, urbanization problem,
traffic congestion, loss of the scenic and cultural value of cities and sanitation ill- management.
Following are some suggestion to the policy makers for tackling the Land Use Planning urgently.

 We must have national laws for regulating the land use planning for urban planning, cultural,
esthetic, preservation of natural resources and environment, safety and protection of economic
interest. The Law shall promote planning for sound development and orderly maintenance of
the national lands and ensure clear guidelines of uniform standards for state owned land and
private land use and strict enforcement strategy through the local, provisional and national
government involvement. The land use planning must provide harmony of urbanization with
agriculture, forestry and natural resources production. Also it should secure cultural and healthy
life style as well as purposeful urban activities through a comprehensive planning or zoning.

 Regulations and policies of National Land Use Planning for the protection of land areas of critical
environmental concerns be quickly developed by the government on both the state land and on
the private lands and the national land be managed in order to recognize the Nation’s need for
domestic sources of minerals, food, timber and fiber and other natural resources.
 Zoning regulation must be introduced by the law to ensure the orderly division of land for
appropriate uses according to the physical property and potential of land. The land must be
zoned broadly in rural areas, urbanizable land and urban land. Urbanizable land should be kept
for future expansion in development or for urbanization and urban area must be further zoned
in cities and sub zoned in certain districts like agriculture, residential, commercial, industrial,
scenic, preservation of natural resources, education, historical sights preservation,
archaeological and open space districts etc. The zoning regulations should ensure growth
management in urban areas through the Urban Growth Boundries.The urban control area or the
urbanizable land should be with in this boundary, and development outside that boundary
should strictly be discouraged.

 Rural land:
Viable rural land must be designated for agriculture, forest management, environmental use
and open space purposes with strict regulations on development in such areas at least for 20
years now on ward under the agriculture land legislature. The government must establish
certain supportive laws for environmental protection and conservation, clean water and air
quality law, forest management and fisheries regulations. Habitat and watershed management
and protection law, water management law and wildlife conservation Acts etc. The law must
have uniform regulations for private land use too and the land developers must receive permits
that protect water sheds, wetlands, habitats, surface water and all other natural resource
protection.
 We see the terrible cost of ill management of such lands with polluted food, deficient range
land, loss of landscape as in Sawt and other hilly areas, our hills are used for residential purposes
and infrastructure provision on such areas are very costly and environmental loss is countless,
along with the genesis of an un healthy society. Also every year our most fertile agricultural
land is divided between the siblings and poorly used for construction purposes and big houses
are kept as the symbol of status.
 City Planning:
We must have city planning law to execute the city plans, land use regulations, construction
regulation and activities related to city facilities. It should have uniform standards for building
heights, safety , density and bulk standards, preventing fire damages, sanitation management;
along with best managed transit system and infrastructure. The cities must be orderly planned
and can be divided further in specialized zones as residential, commercial, and industrial and
employment zones with sub zoning in certain districts of environmental protection, agriculture
and scenic and parking facilities districts, natural landscape preservation districts as hills,
mountains, parks and coastal land etc. .The focus must be on vertical growth or skyscrapers
instead of horizontal growth that can save our land in construction. For more efficient use of
land we must adopt smart growth strategies.
 Administrative procedures:
We must have involvement of all the parties including local government, provisional and
national government in any transaction of land and should have approval from the cabinet. They
must create plans for uses of national land at local, provisional and national level to maintain
order in development .Unlike the case of Motor ways by Nawaz Sharif or Orange Train Project
by his brother and cancer hospitals by Imran Khan that damaged valuable land and other
resources.. The ruling class must safeguard the land for future generations and rather should
have efficient existing GT Roads. The Public health should be managed by economic efficiency
rather than building cancer hospitals in every province.

 The policy makers should have strong linkages with the educational institutions and research
facilities for establishing any law or policy and there should be no involvement of NGOs or donor
agencies in designing and in enforcement of law.