TITLE:
Zoning Ordinance as a Development Method for Kabul City
AUTHORS:
Ahmad Shoaib Jahani
KEYWORDS:
Zoning Plan, Zoning Regulation, Informal Settlement, Kabul City
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.10 No.1,
January
30,
2023
ABSTRACT: Globally, over 50% of the population lives in urban areas today. By 2045, the world’s urban population will increase by 1.5 times to 6 billion. City leaders must move quickly to plan for growth and provide the basic services, infrastructure, and affordable housing to meet their expanding population’s need. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/urbandevelopment/overview. Kabul the capital of Afghanistan is home to 5 million populations, whiles 2.4 million of this population lives in informal settlements widespread over 66 percent of Kabul’s urban areas (Sasaki 2019) [1]. The gradual urban growth of Kabul which started during King Abdul Rahman Khan Era (1880 to 1901) until 2001 had a normal growth rate, while the city experienced a demographical explosion after defeating Taliban in August of 2001 and mass flow of wealth by U.S Government and other countries. A fluster situation in Kabul led mafia to grab the governmental and other public lands. Agricultural land-use rapidly changed to residential and commercial purposes, while these changes occurred without any preplanning or at least in a proper manner by individuals and the proportion of informal settlements increased. The purpose of this research is to use zoning ordinance as an alternative of land acquisition to develop road networks, regularize building constructions and define Kabul zones to prevent interference and activities between them. The methods used in this research are based on primary data generated by Land Readjustment and Urban Redevelopment and City Planning and Implementation Directorates, Secondary data such as published research paper, articles, books and official websites. Our findings during this research show that there are no differences between issuing building permit and applying zoning ordinance. Current process of zoning plans is based on proposed land use plan of Kabul Urban Development Framework (KUDF). Approving zoning plans prepared by less experienced will have negative results in the future which is not possible to retrieve.