The Thiruvananthapuram Corporation’s draft master plan 2040, which proposes a land use pattern with 77% of the city’s area for built-up use, has earmarked special development zones considering the scarcity of land availability for various projects. The spatial zones, according to the plan document, are derived taking into consideration the future transportation development scenario.
Considering the controversies over the previous draft master plan which had to be withdrawn in February 2014 following widespread public protests in the outer areas of the city, the latest one has taken a more liberal approach as far as demarcating areas in which construction activities are restricted. However, the master plan has this time come in for criticism from the chamber of commerce and similar business-related bodies, who have criticised it as a non-progressive plan which does not consider the future developmental needs of the city.
Under the new master plan, about 7 % of the land area falls under non built uses. However environmentally suitable activities are permissible in these areas. Land reserved for conservation accounts for about 4 % of the land use. Special development zones, aimed at bringing around planned development, constitute about 1.5 % of the land use.
One of the largest demarcations is for the priority development zones, which occupies a major area of the city. It is intended to provide facilities for intense mixed development of all major uses like residential, commercial, public/semi-public and industrial. The area has been marked by assessing the development patterns of the city in recent years which have shown a mixed trend, rather than a segregated development pattern.
The Transit Oriented Development (TOD) zone is anticipated to cater to mixed residential and commercial development along identified mobility corridors in the city to provide better work-home connectivity. The master plan proposes a decongestion strategy for the city centre by decentralising public transport, in line with plans that have been proposed in the past. The existing bus terminal infrastructure in the city is proposed to be converted into major (catering to intercity traffic) and minor hubs (catering to intracity traffic).
The major hubs would be at Enchakkal, Anayara, Peroorkada and Pappanamcode, while the minor hubs of the city would be at Kazhakuttam, Vikas Bhavan, Thampanoor and Vizhinjam. The major and minor hubs would be connected through dedicated circular routes.
Among the three special zones, special zone A for the proposed mobility hub is put forward with the objective of developing a multi-mode mobility hub near Kochuveli, which will be the convergence point for various mass transit transport systems. The special zone B is the area earmarked for expansion of the Government Medical College campus as per a separate master plan prepared for this purpose. The Special zone C will be the special development zone to address land scarcity for developmental projects. The areas selected are scarcely developed and not coming under areas to be conserved too. A total of 274 acres of such land has been identified.
