CHAPTER 30 LAND USE PLANNING

Narimah Samat

Introduction

Land cover is defined as physical material at the surface. It includes forest, asphalt, trees, bare ground or
water bodies. Land cover is distinct from land use; however, these two terms are often being used
interchangeably. Land use is the human use of land (Chapin and Kaiser, 1979), which is associated with
socio-economic activity on the land. Land use involves the management and modification of natural
environment or wilderness into built environment such as fields, pastures, settlements, and industrial.
Land use especially urban land has various functions which transforms from mono-functional to
multifunctional (Deakin et al., 2007: 289). Urban land use often experiences rapid changes particularly
from agriculture or open space into residential or commercial activities. Such changes needs to be
closely monitored and planned to ensure sustainable used of land.

Land Use Planning

Land use planning is defined as planning for the allocation of activities to land areas in order to benefit
humans. Planning involves three sets of activities namely; forecasting requirements or demand for
goods and services, estimating the supple of land available to produce these goods and services, seeking
to influence the activities of firms and households through guidance, regulation and incentives, and
describing a range of concerns, expressed through many specific policies. Thus, planning encompasses
of various strategies which seek to order and regulate land use in an efficient and ethical way, thus
preventing conflicts in land use. Recently land use planning has often been aimed at achieving
sustainable land use activity. Sustainable planning focuses on development that improves the long-term
health and ecological systems, which aims to achieve sustainable land use and produce livable
communities.

Land use planning, therefore, is about devising strategies for reshaping or protecting the built and
natural environment. These strategies may take a variety of forms and their implementation need not
necessarily be guided by a design blueprint and plan. In Japan, for example, planning process takes into
consideration the social, political and historical backgrounds. Urban planning is a legal construct as well
as concept. Thus city planning law applies to urban and urbanizing areas and stipulates contents,
procedures, regulations and projects. Land use planning deals withall possible uses and aims to devise
strategies that will lead to sustainable use of resources and desired end states. Thus, it deals with the
idea of decisionmaking to achieve a given goal

In regulating land use effectively and protecting the interest of land owner, zoning has often being used.
Zoning is public regulation of land, where zoning decisions have important influence on land use activity
and environment. Thus, it can be used to safeguard and ensure sustainable use of land. Zoning involves
the physical separation of land uses within a given tract, with the mixture of uses carefully controlled to
minimize conflict and the tract overall managed as a single management unit. Large scale zoning is also
practiced widely, in order to allocate available land resources as equitably as possible between
competing resource user groups and for different (and at times incompatible) function. In Japan, for
example, land use regulations are not very strict as some other countries. Compatible land use other
than residential uses such as neighbourhood commercial services is allowed exclusively in residential
districts. Other example of zoning practice in Japan is land protection on the island of Hokkaido which
has involved designation of three major land classes, National Parks, Quasi National Parks, and
Prefectural Parks, and the zoning of each into three categories with differing degrees of development
control (special protection areas,

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special areas, and ordinary areas). In Malaysia, planning regulation was very influence by planning
regulation practiced in Britain. Land use zoning is well established. Land use is guided by the structure
plan, which becomes planning document used as planning guideline in the form of zoned land and
resource allocations (Cloke & Park, 1985). Land use zoning policies tend to be more effective when
applied to the planning of new development particularly on public land.

Zoning can be used to control growth and protect areas from certain types to control growth and
protect areas from certain types of development. For example, cities such as Portland, Oregon (USA),
and Curitiba, Brazil have used zoning to encourage high density development along major mass transit
corridors to reduce automobile use and air pollution (Elkin, 1974; (Miller and Spoolman, 2009). Although
zoning has effectively been used to control growth, it has several drawbacks. For example, developers
may influence or modify zoning decision in ways that threaten or destroy wetlands, agriculture land,
forested areas, and open space. Another problem is that zoning often favors high-cost housing and
other business over providing low cost housing due to high return of investment. Zoning may also
discourage innovative approaches to solve urban problems. In addition, cities like Melbourne used
urban growth boundary concept to contain or limit urban spatial growth into designated areas. Such
planning policy attempts to predict land use demand to accommodate population growth and land use
demand within specific period. Urban growth boundary has often been associated with sustainable land
use planning since demand for land will be quantified and development only will be allowed within
designated growth boundary (Tayyebi, 2010).

Land use regulations

Urban land use regulation is one of the oldest means of promoting economic development (Chapin and
Kaiser, 1979). It attempts to create rules regarding the use of public and private land in a city, with the
goal of constraining and coordinating private land use decisions and achieving a uniform, consistent
vision of city land use. Land use regulations make land available for different types of productive uses.
Other tools such as infrastructure improvements including streets, utilities, and other amenities are
necessary to support urban development (Berg, 2007).

Land adjustment and consolidation

Land adjustment allows consolidation of public land and acquisition of important resource value. This
land consolation method is one of the methods of land development for developing or improving urban
infrastructure and also enhancing utility/value of land. This process is conducted by installing urban
infrastructure by means of the land contribution to public facilities according to a layout plan. Land
parcels are replotted according to layout and land use plan and all land rights are legally transferred to
the new replots y the land replotting disposition. In Japan for example, farmland adjustment structure
was conducted in agriculture sector such that the relocation of land resources was undertaken to reduce
costs, increase productivity ad gain international competitiveness. The aim is farmland concentration
thus increase the average size of operational farmland (Arimoto, 2011).

Good Practices in Yokohama

Yokohama has practice urban redevelopment as an example of city-wide system change towards an
ecocity. Urban built environments have developed to accommodate the needs and welfare of citizens
and to create a greener engine of future development. Various strategies have been undertaken in
order to plan for sustainable use of land. The planning activity undertaken in the City of Yokohama,
Japan namely experiencing rapid growth during the post-war years, which successfully overcame its
environmental problems by adopting strategic projects based on public-private partnerships. These
projects are the Yokohama Green-Up Plan, Yokohama Smart City Project, Yokohama Partnership of
Resources and

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Technologies (Y-PORT) and Future City Yokohama. The Yokohama Green-Up Plan aims to improve urban
greenery through forest and farmland conservation as well as greenery promotion, paid for through

through a Central Energy Management System (CEMS) involving numerous private companies. Y-PORT is
an international technical cooperation project based on public-private partnership and drawing on the
resources and technology of Yokohama. The Future City project aims to create a city beneficial for all its
inhabitants through the environment (low carbon and energy saving technologies), economy and society
(with an emphasis on the ageing society problem). Based on initiatives undertaken, th environmental
state of Yokohama has improved dramatically. The city was ranked above average in terms of energy
use and CO2 emissions, environmental land use and building regulations, sustainable transportation,
waste management, air quality and environmental governance. It was also ranked well above average in
term of water quality and management considered among the best in Asia. In 2008, Yokohama was
honored by the Japanese Government as an eco-model city.

In Malaysia, for example, Putrajaya (Photograph 30.1) was planned based on sustainable development
concept to become a low carbon green city. A Green City is defined as a city planned with the principles
of sustainable development with programs and initiatives to preserve the environment and natural
resources in the view to reducing the negative impact of human activities onto the environment and
natural. In addition it has often been associated with management of renewable and non-renewable
resources, management of waste and the reduction of the impact of greenhouse gases (GHG) such as
carbon dioxide resulting from various human activities. It is still a long way to go but the initiative
undertaken aims to improve quality of life and achieve sustainable development.
Photograph 30.1: An aerial photograph of a well planned Putrajaya (Source:
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/aerial-view-of-putrajaya-royalty-free-image/175706924
Accessed 11 Aug 2016).

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Urban Growth Boundary

Although various strategies have been introduced and implemented to control urban expansion and
land use transformation, urbanization process continues to be one of the major issues facing cities
especially in

2000 to 8.27 billion in 2030 where cities population will increase from 3.86 billion to 4.98 billion (UN,
2008; McGee, 2009). Ironically, of these new urban dwellers, approximately 2 billion will concentrate in
cities of developing nations. The rapid pace of urbanization caused cities to grow into conurbations or
metropolises into mega-urban regions. Mega-urban-region is a transactional space comprising a part of
the cities network measured based on transport flows, economic linkages (industry, services, and
agriculture), labour market, and population movements (McGee, 2009). This area becomes the centre of
population, social and economic activities with fully developed infrastructure and provides favourable
environment for both domestic and foreign capital and in-migration (Shiliang et al., 2011).

Significant increase of its population caused the cities to be spreading over to countryside, encroaching
into rural agricultural and natural spaces, and changing land use/cover and landscape in the hinterland
(Simon et al., 2004; Kumar et al, 2011; Shiliang et al., 2011). This has caused population growth to occur
at the fringe as compared to urban core, and urban growth is predicted to concentrate predominantly in
a smaller town at the fringe of mega-urban-region (McGee, 2009). Such phenomenon causes cities to
grow at the expense of arable land, minimizing the time and distance between and in-and-out of the
cities (Simon et al., 2004). Rural areas, on the other hand, experience land loss to housing and services,
agriculture intensification and commercialization, environmental degradation and agriculture decline
Urban and rural areas, therefore, provide essential and complimentary linkages where these areas rely
on combination of agriculture and non-agriculture income sources for their likelihood (Tacoli, 1998). As
a result, this situation has created a blurring urban and rural boundary.

In Malaysia, for example, The 11 th Malaysia Development Plan (2015-2020) envisages city to be major
for economic growth and prosperity of the nation. Urban development is driven by state-led investment
which focuses on improving infrastructure in order to attract foreign investment with the hope of
fostering local economy. Politics has significant influence on planning decision such that the location of
infrastructure is closely related to certain political decision. Furthermore, lands for educational
institutions, public facilities and other infrastructure are being acquired away from existing urban
centres in order to promote economic growth. This type of growth termed urban sprawl or leap-frog
type of growth created serious problem on land price and inefficient use of land. For example, due to
the present of infrastructure, land speculation hikes up the price of land causing serious threat to
agriculture land at the fringe areas (McGee. 2009; Samat et al., 2014). Urban development for a local
municipal council is guided by the Structure Plan, a long term planning document, prepared for a period
of twenty years and reviewed at every five years, and local plan, a short-term planning document,
prepared specifically for small area. At present, however, these documents are prepared in most cases
by the consultants which have limited background on the study area and presented in texts format
(Samat et al., 2014). Thus, it could only be used to guide planning for urban development and have
limited capability for analysis such as trying to investigate the impact of proposed development on the
existing urban areas. Planners, therefore, have to develop a practical and easy to use model that could
be used to demonstrate the impact of urban development and test different planning policy on the
spatial pattern of urban growth. Another limitation of existing planning document is that it only can
describe the amount of land needed for example for residential or infrastructure in the near future. It
could not be used to determine areas most likely be used to satisfy the demand for those activities.
Thus, the sustainability of urban development could not be taken into consideration (Samat, 2009;
Muhammad et al., 2015).

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Decision Support System for Urban Planning

A decision support system (DSS) is a computer program application that analyzes data and presents it so
that users can make planning decisions more easily (see Chapter 31). It is an informational application
that gathered data to assist in decision making. Chan et. al. (2016) described in detail the basic
requirements and functions of a DSS for urban planning. With the advance of Geographic Information
System, computer based software that can be used in acquiring, managing, manipulating and analyzing,
and displaying spatial and non-spatial information, DSS makes used of GIS has led to the development of
planning decision support systems (PSS) that assist planning making process. PSS uses indicators and
alternative development scenarios to measure the attributes and performance of communities and their
plans. PSS is instrumental to successful community planning and public participation processes because
they focus on the needs and the know-how of users as opposed to focusing on or requiring a high
degree of GIS expertise. It can also be used to evaluate the performances of different planning scenarios
according to planner- or citizen-defined indicators for land use, transportation, natural resources, and
employment. The study by Samat (2002) for example, used GIS and spatial model to simulate urban
spatial growth based on five different planning scenarios. Such an approach allows planners to test
various planning strategies within computer environment prior to its implementation. Thus, the strategy
allows planners and policy makers to anticipate the impact of policy adopted. In addition, the ultimate
goal of such planning tool is to bring together all potential players to work collaboratively on a common
vision for their community. GIS-based planning support systems allow planners and citizens to quickly
and efficiently create and test alternative development scenarios and determine their likely impacts on
future land use patterns and associated population and employment trends, thus allowing public
officials to make informed planning decisions.