FIG Commission 8 - Spatial planning and development

Term 2003-2006

Highlights	Commission Chair 2003-2006
As I complete my tenure, I am pleased to hand over a Commission that has greater geographical diversity in the active member base, together with a good solid foundation plan for further initiatives proposed over the next term.		Ms. Diane Dumashie, United Kingdom

During the period to 2003, the commission membership has been subject to political, business and social changes which has disrupted and constrained the progress of the commission activities. Consequently activities at the start of this work plan progressed in a haphazard way without clear leadership or direction, but this positively changed with the election of Dr Diane Dumashie as chairman in 2004.

From this date Commission 8 consolidated and built upon the small body of committed active members and focused in the remaining years on collaboration and connectivity. Fundamental to collaboration and connectivity is communication - seeking to increase communication between existing members and raising the profile of the commission by promoting networking opportunities.

Achievements 

The highlights of the term include:

• Building Bridges with African Region members, such as exploring opportunities with Institute of Kenyan Surveyors to hold a seminar in East African Region during the next term (subject to funding).
• Compiling a CD “Handing over the Baton”, detailing this Terms activities.
• Collaborating and submitting papers from Comm 8 delegates to the ISK journal for publication.
•  Building for the future involvement of young professionals, by enabling four Post Graduate students to attend and present top class papers by assisting with registration fees.

Terms of reference

• Regional and local structure planning
• Urban and rural land use planning
• Planning policies and environmental improvement
• Urban development and implementation
• Public-private partnerships
• Informal settlements and urbanisation in developing countries
• Environmental impact assessment

Mission statement

The activities of Commission 8 in the years 2002-2006 will be focuses on physical planning at all levels, undertake and learn from case studies and enhance understanding and knowledge of planning systems. The importance of sustainable development, environmental issues in planning and environmental impact assessments (EIA) in spatial planning procedures will be key issues throughout the plan period.

The commission will continue to co-operate with countries in social and economic transition, in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world.

The commission will assist with the implementation of Agenda 21 (from the Rio Earth Summit) and the Global Plan of Action (from the Habitat II Conference in Istanbul) at the local and urban level. It will pay particular attention to informal settlements and urbanisation problems in developing countries.

The commission will carry on looking for solutions for implementation problems and will especially focus in that way on inner cities and declined areas. It will focus on public/private partnership as a way to work on solutions for those problems and other tools that promote planned and sustainable city, town, land use and development.

• Annual Report, 2006
• Annual Report, 2005
• Annual Report, 2004
• Annual Report, 2003

Working Group 8.1 - Urban Regeneration

Policy Issues

The working group started its work after the Melbourne Congress in 1994. It deals with inner-city problems and regeneration of established urban areas. The aim of the group is to observe the different projects on a 12-years time to examine the projects in such a way to determine whether the methods or instruments used present are successful and applicable way for other projects in other countries.

Working Group 8.2 - PPP - Public Private Partnership

Policy Issues

In the last years PPP has become more and more important in the planning and development of projects in city-areas and land-projects. The aim is to combine the strength of the instruments of the public-part and the private part/money that comes from the private partners.

Commission 8 has already paid a lot of attention to this topic in the last 4 years. Many papers were about this topic. Spoken is e.g. about PPP-project in Germany and the Netherlands. Also has been spoken about instruments as the Neighbourhood-Development-Corporation in Rotterdam and the NC-Enschede, as instruments to help declined areas.

The commission will:

• collect ideas and build up a network for the exchange of ideas,
• work closely with other commissions on this topic,
• try to organise an workshop on this topic or will co-operate in workshops held on this topic,
• form and agree a collaborative working group including professionals and academics.

Chair

Prof. Kari I. Leväinen (Finland)
e-mail: Kari.Levainen[at]hut.fi 

Working Group 8.3 - Global Urbanisation Process in Large Cities

Policy Issues

Identifying:

• Global urbanisation problems and processes
• Special problems of informal settlements in large cities
• Relationship between land allocation and development economics applied to temporary housing settlements
• Coastal and environmental pressures and solutions.

Chair

Diane Dumashie United Kingdom e-mail: atfchair_p[at]ymail.com

Working Group 8.4 - Disaster Management – Preventing Environmental Catastrophes by Spatial Planning and Land Management

Policy Issues

Chair

Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Theo Kötter (Germany)
e-mail: koetter[at]uni-bonn.de