KARACHI, Aug 26: Too many land owning agencies, weak governance, a vast number of unauthorised katchi abadis (informal settlements) and multiple land ownership are some of the major impediments in the way of resolving Karachi’s land-related problems.

This has been revealed in a latest study titled ‘Karachi: the land issue’.

The study, supported by the International Institute for Environment and Development UK, is conceived, designed and edited by distinguished architect Arif Hasan and jointly authored by Arif Hasan, Mansoor Raza and the Urban Research and Development Cell, NED University Karachi’s Prof Dr Noman Ahmed, Associate Prof Asiya Sadiq and Assistant Prof Saeeduddin Ahmed.

The methodology used in the study to back up facts and figures and highlight the relevant issues has consisted of reviewing and commenting on all available secondary sources (including media reports), interviews with formal and informal developers, estate agents and encroachers, government officials and representatives of investment companies, non-governmental organisation and community-based organisation representatives, lawyers involved in property cases, and land and housing rights activists. Surveys were also carried out of flat owners, formal and informal renters, different types of hawkers, evicted and to-be-evicted populations, and home-seekers and home-sellers.

Putting things in context, the document establishes at the outset that like other metropolises in South Asia, Karachi has its share of common problems. But it is different from them due to three important and inter-related factors. They are: (1) Karachi’s strategic location vis-à-vis the Afghan war conflict and its bearing on the region; (2) its significance as the economic hub of Pakistan, especially of Sindh; (3) and the fact that those migrated to the city after partition outnumber the city’s native Sindhi- and Balochi-speaking populations.

The study traces the socio-cultural and political trajectory of the city from the time when the Russian Czarist Empire wanted to get control of it to reach its warm water and to stop the British from spreading their tentacles in the zone, as a result of which the British occupied Karachi after annexing Sindh in 1843. It moves on and discusses the fallout of the Afghan war in the late 1970s and the subsequent introduction of the drugs and Kalashnikov culture in the city. The study claims it was in the 1990s that ‘gun power’ was first used to settle scores and occupy property.

The inevitable issues of ethnic composition, the Sindh Local Government Ordinance (SLGO) of 2001 and the return of the old bureaucratic system after the 2008 general election come under discussion, after which the study brings to light the many powerful stakeholders in/of the city. These stakeholders, among many, include cantonments which the provincial land administration had allocated as ‘sizable land parcels for different purposes to different agencies during British rule’.

Similarly cooperative housing societies were developed under the act of 1860 which control a reasonable percentage of the total land in the city. Among them, the study tells us, the Pakistan Defence Officers’ Cooperative Housing Society (PDOCHS) started like a normal cooperative society but owing to the financial challenges Gen Ziaul Haq dissolved the PDOCHS and formed the DHA hence the Clifton Cantonment is the latest cantonment in the city. As far as industrial units go, Bin Qasim and the Steel Mills are stakeholders that have 1.5 per cent share of the land. Most recently, the Malir Development Authority (MDA) and the Lyari Development Authority (LDA) have joined the list as well. The authors point out that ‘land ownership and management functions are divided among many public agencies without a common coordinating mechanism or a shared purpose’, therefore, they are unable to look after the needs of low-income housing and to provide basic amenities to the residents.

Then come laws, statutes and regulations related to land management. According to the study, the building bylaws and zoning regulations help a healthy physical and social environment despite being anti-street and anti-pedestrian and too rigid for the poor communities to follow. And the cantonment laws are anti-poor and do not facilitate the transition of informal settlements into formal ones. However, the problem is not of laws but of ‘governance’.

Reviewing land and urban master plan, the study identifies multiple ownership and management control of land as a major hindrance. While there are proposals which are technically valid and socially relevant, the undecided status of local government and absence of consensus among the major political stakeholders are the main reasons for the non-implementation of these proposals, it deduces. An interesting and worth pondering over part of the study is when it underlines the issue of land-grabbing. Doing so, it draws attention to the role of political parties, powerful state institutions and land politics in contributing to the problem. The detailed study is accompanied by maps and charts which make it easier for the reader to comprehend it. It not only spots the hindrances in resolving land issues but also by coming up with ‘results’ of every survey identifies the actors (and their relationships) and processes of formal and informal land-use changes and land conversions, the manner of operation of a ruthless rental market, the effect of gentrification and evictions on poor communities and on society and the city as a whole, the dangers to activists, the relationship between planning and the ‘under-world’, and the political involvement and its repercussions on the social and physical form of the city.

Sociological repercussions of increasing density, causes and repercussions of living in apartments, and the violation of existing rules and regulations by powerful agencies such as the armed forces and the corporate sector also form part of the study.

Synthesising it all, the document analyses the reform needed for the development of a more equitable land policy.