I want to first acknowledge the work that the department of Physical Planning has done over the past twenty-four years to encourage Anguilla to be a more physically and socially cohesive community. I also want to commend you for your vision to conduct this workshop to celebrate with your fellow planners the world over, World Town Planning Day, 2014. I believe by organizing this workshop you further demonstrated your commitment to ensuring that we, the Anguillian public, do our part, to encourage Anguilla to become a more physically and socially cohesive community, as well.
What do we mean by physically and socially cohesive communities?
I will first look at what we mean by “physically” and then I will look at what we mean by “socially.” By physically we are referring to the actual space – the built environment. This includes the use of land and how we organize its various uses – whether to accommodate buildings, roads, recreational facilities, utilities, airports, seaports and/or “green spaces.” We also are talking about how we preserve and enhance our natural water bodies such as streams or ponds and how we address the challenges of waste disposal and access for emergency vehicle and personnel. By socially, we are referring to our societal needs and how we as a society prefer to interface with the physical environment. So in essence, when we say “encouraging physically and socially cohesive communities,” we are saying, we want to organize our built environments in such a way so as to create communities that foster and accommodate our basic needs and our desired activities in an acceptable and harmonious manner. We design-professionals call that “design” and the planning professionals refer to that as planning or more specifically here in Anguilla as, “physical planning.” Whether we call it “design” or we call it “physical planning” the two main points I want to make here are firstly, that physical planning or design is a very necessary and beneficial exercise for every community to undertake and secondly and perhaps more importantly, is that it is critical in nation building and national development to not only encourage physically and socially cohesive communities, but to actually achieve them.
What are some of the benefits of achieving physically and socially cohesive communities? I’ll put it this way: the last time I checked, our heavenly father was not making anymore land and as a result, land is a very precious resource the world over but especially to we Anguillians. Therefore, like every other precious resource, the use of land should be carefully and effectively managed and efficiently utilized. This, however, does not happen by some serendipitous act or just by hoping that it happens. Far from it! It is accomplished by a community coming together and purposefully deciding first, that it needs to carefully and effectively manage and efficiently utilize its land resources and then agreeing, at least by consensus, how best to do so. Some of the benefits of doing this include:
1. More appropriately located essential services within the community. For example: schools, healthcare facilities, community centers and recreational facilities could be strategically clustered or retail and commercial offices can be concentrated near easily accessible transportation routes to increase convenience.
2. More appropriately sized and designed roads and road networks. The size and features of a road is directly related to the demand it is anticipated to meet. For obvious reasons a road intended to serve sparsely located housing would have a lower anticipated demand than a road intended to serve a 500 unit apartment complex.
3. More appropriately sized and designed utility networks. The electricity, water and tele-communications network intended to serve the two scenarios above, namely the sparsely located housing and the 500 unit apartment complex would be quite different.
4. More appropriate mitigation of conflicting or incompatible land-uses. Every society has a hierarchy of preferred land-uses and inevitably there will be times when adjacent land-owners would have conflicting development desires for their respective properties. Prudent land-use planning would provide a remedy acceptable to the community.
5. More appropriate accommodations for emergency vehicles such as ambulances and fire- fighting equipment. There are several other benefits some of which can be describe as psychological and emotional, but in the interest of time, I will move on.
How can all this be done? How can we encourage physically and socially cohesive communities and more specifically, how can Anguilla become a more physically and socially cohesive community? Well, it starts by we as a community, agreeing that it should. That would be a great first step but that would not be enough. It would still require us to sit down as a community and, if necessary, person by person, family by family, community group by community group and village by village and firstly, listen. Listen for our fellow citizens’ desires, dreams and aspirations, not just for themselves but also for their community. Then, it would require the planning experts, through the application of proven and appropriate planning principles to propose a land-use plan that would help our fellow citizens accomplish their stated desires, dreams and aspirations. This is a very involved process and requires a lot of consultation with all the various stakeholders but most importantly, with the land-owners themselves. Undoubtedly, several drafted proposed land-use plans would have to be created before one receives acceptance from the stakeholders most affected. Now, I’m aware that a similar effort was undertaken in Anguilla sometime ago and that the department of Physical Planning has developed a proposed land-use plan but I’m not aware of it gaining public acceptance. To gain the public’s acceptance would be a herculean accomplishment given we Anguillians almost religious affinity to our land and the deeply engrained notion that “it is my land and nobody can tell me what to do with it.” To eventually accomplish the monumental task of getting our people to accept a proposed land-use plan, would require the Physical Planning department to have all the necessary resources including the requisite trained personnel, all with an unwavering determination, passion and commitment to complete this extremely important policy making exercise.
But that still would not be enough! It would still require government to lead by example. It would require government to demonstrate its commitment to good physical planning principles by adhering to them when developing its own facilities and also to insist that those same planning principles are adhered to for buildings that it uses/lease. When government doesn’t adhere to its own regulations, it undermines them and it encourages the public to do the same. This certainly does not encourage physically and socially cohesive communities.
It is with regret that I have to inform you that even after all that – it still would not be enough! What it would still require is for our political directorate to demonstrate the political maturity and political will to formulate appropriate legislation to ensure that an accepted land-use plan, produced through the planning process, enjoys the full force of law. It would require the abandonment of the current practice that allows the Minister of Lands of the day, to have final say on a planning application without any publicly known and or democratically developed criteria for guiding the final decision. But though that would be a very happy and commendable day in Anguilla and one that we all should strive for, unfortunately, that still would not be enough.
By now you may be asking, after all that, what then would be enough? What else would still be required to make Anguilla a more physically and socially cohesive community? I humbly submit to you that, what is ultimately required is for we as a people to develop a more comfortable understanding of the physical planning process and an affinity for it, that will replace the deeply engrained notion that because we own our land, nobody can or should even try to tell us what we can and can’t do on it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I believe is ultimately required for Anguilla to become a more physically and socially cohesive community.
Yes, we all own our land and we all have the right to develop it how we see fit but none of us individually, unless Anguilla isn’t a democratic society, has the right to deprive our fellow citizens the ability and/or the opportunity to develop their land how they see fit as well. Therefore, what is required is for we as a people, to develop a process whereby, conflicting and/or incompatible land -uses, which quite naturally have and will continue to occur, can be democratically mitigated. This process should end with a legally binding document or set of documents typically referred to as a Comprehensive Land-use Plan or in some jurisdictions, as a Land-use Plan or simply as, The Plan. The process of comprehensive land-use planning democratically determines the criteria for the various land-uses and how inherent conflicts and/or incompatibility can be mitigated. It does this before-hand; before a landowner invests anytime or their hard earned money into hiring an architect like myself. In the absence of comprehensive land-use planning, by the time a situation involving incompatible land-uses is addressed, the land-owner would have already incurred some financial cost and is then, invariable, at the mercy of the decision of the Minister of Lands of the day. The comprehensive land-use planning process develops the criteria consultatively, responsively, inclusively and publicly- not behind closed doors. It writes the criteria down and makes it available in the public domain so that the criteria is not dependent on who the Minister of Lands happens to be at the time. The comprehensive land-use planning process takes a long view – typically 10-15 years. This allows development to occur orderly, instead of haphazardly. A Comprehensive Land-use Plan would provide a road-map for how the community will or can be develop and it serves as an excellent marketing tool for attracting foreign-direct investment. It tells the world what we want to develop and where we want it to be developed. It is A-political. The Comprehensive Land-use Plan is the Comprehensive Land-use Plan regardless, of which politician is in office and it should not be drastically changed until it is scheduled to be updated.
Where have this been done? A comprehensive approach to land-use planning, in one form or another, has been use by most, if not all, of the developed world. It has been at the core of the economic development strategies of all major cities in the United States of America from the early 1900. Countries such as Australia, Singapore, Isle of Man and even little Bermuda all have adopted and implemented the comprehensive land-use planning approach. The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), which is the national urban planning authority of Singapore, have this to said: “prudent land use planning has enabled Singapore to enjoy strong economic growth and social cohesion and ensures that sufficient land is safeguarded to support continued economic progress and future development.” Now, I am not here to paint a picture that nothing is right regarding the state of planning in Anguilla but I am saying that there is still more work to do.
Before I conclude, I would like you to consider the following questions:
1. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a document that tells every landowner in Anguilla, not just how they could develop their land but also lets them know that how the surrounding properties could be developed would not negatively impact them?.
2. Wouldn’t this also be very important information to have when selling, leasing or purchasing land?
3. Shouldn’t this be very important information for those responsible for attracting investors and investment into Anguilla?
4. Have you ever wondered what our Governments present to potential foreign investors, especially those who haven’t been to Anguilla, when trying to encourage them to invest in Anguilla? What do we show and tell them?
5. Wouldn’t it seem very strange if a government was to tell an investor to come to Anguilla and develop a high end tourist resort but can’t tell the investor how the land around that resort site is planned to be developed? Or to say we want to attract light industry into Anguilla and haven’t yet identified the potential site or sites to showcase to the potential developers?
6. Wouldn’t it seem strange to expect our electricity, water and tele-communication companies to be prepared to quickly meet development needs when we do not have a Land-use Plan backed by the force of law?
7. Have you ever wondered how government can adequately size roads without having some reliable source to anticipate the required capacity for such roads?
The zeal with which we individually answer these and similar questions will be an indication of how physically and socially cohesive we believe Anguilla is and how willing we are to encourage it to become a more physically and socially cohesive community. Thank you very much for your attention and happy World Town Planning Day 2014 to all.
