While the Pernem Zoning plan may not be concurrent with the popular opinion of the conservationists such as the leading environmentalists in the state of Goa, sometimes the contrasting viewpoints necessitate attention in order to understand where the true intention of the governmental land reforming agents lie.
Land Zoning has always been something to be exercised through the auspices of future development notwithstanding the sustainability of the decisions. The literature review of the past two decades in the field of urbanisation studies reveals that the costs involved in conversion of land Zoning would be invariably borne by the exchequer in terms of increased budgeting expenditure to be imposed by the governmental departments concerning Land Zoning reforms in the hopes that the revenues generated from the change of land use purpose would be beneficial to local economic growth. Pernem is obviously an example of hopeful planning aimed at rapid expansion and regional growth.
According to Vanessa Brown Calder in her research article titled: Zoning, Land-Use Planning, and Housing Affordability (2017)
“Local zoning and land-use regulations have increased substantially over the decades. These constraints on land development within cities and suburbs aim to achieve various safety, environmental, and aesthetic goals. But the regulations have also tended to reduce the supply of housing, including multifamily and low-income housing.”
In fact Vanessa Brown Calder (2017) has neatly generalized the scenario: “Land-use regulation is an umbrella term for rules that govern land development, and zoning is an important type of land-use regulation. Zoning and land-use regulations control the development of private land through use, density, design, and historic preservation requirements. The volume of these regulations has grown markedly over the decades in most...cities. Local governments impose the rules and then enforce compliance via lengthy approval processes overseen by planning commissions or local government administrators. These processes give officials substantial discretionary power, which adds uncertainty to an already costly process for developers and builders.”
Accordingly, Calder (2017) has cautioned that: “The growing number of rules and regulations on urban land use has stemmed from well-intentioned efforts to promote public safety, environmental objectives, and aesthetic goals for development. But a major side effect of this growing volume of rules has been to deter construction and reduce the supply of housing, including multifamily and low-income housing.”
According to William A. Fischel in his 2003 Article titled: An Economic History of Zoning and a Cure for its Exclusionary Effects - “But over the course of a century, zoning has become the tool for a broader range of goals. Modern zoning ordinances often aim to protect the environment and farmland. They also endeavor to improve public safety; create aesthetically pleasing, dynamic urban environments; and ensure plentiful low-cost housing”all while allowing communities to control their property tax base.”
Hence, in the opinion of Calder (2017): “...many of zoning’s stated objectives conflict with each other.”
While keeping in tune with the latest research on Urbanisation, a recent paper by Kalfas et al. titled: Urbanization and Land Use Planning for Achieving the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) (2023), the following observations have been made: “Land use and urbanization modifications caused by human factors are apparent everywhere. Important variables include direct drivers such as population expansion or infrastructure system modifications as well as indirect drivers such as energy transition processes. As a result, a wide range of land use disputes have arisen. The negative implications of land use on combating climate change, protecting biodiversity, and sustaining vital ecosystem services are increasingly gaining prominence in political and scholarly discussions. In addition, cities have drawn increased attention as the locations of the primary issues with global sustainable development, as well as the locations of the solutions, as the percentage of the world’s population living in urban areas has crossed fifty percent.”
The SDG based study related to Land Use Planning showed that:
n Indicators of urbanization quality are very key to achieving different SDGs.
- This indicates that sustainable urbanization entails more than just converting agricultural land and forests without making any changes to them into cities, and it is equally one of the answers to the problem of the world’s population growth if it is done with vision and dedication.
- The study clearly shows that integrated land use strategies are important in achieving the SDGs. In this case, land use planning is mostly a local effort, though some nations employ guiding land use plans created at the regional or inter-municipal level.
- Furthermore, urbanization opportunities and land-use plans have a great influence on the achievement of sustainable development goals.
- Notably, the goal of sustainable urban development is to make urban areas “sustainable” as well as to build or reinforce the city’s sustainability-related economic, social, cultural, and environmental aspects.
The environmental effects upon land use planning and zoning can never be disregarded and would always continue to play a pivotal role in the reforms.
According a Permatasari et al. in their article titled: The effect of land use change on water quality: A case study (2017) - “The uncontrolled growth of settlements and urban area along the watershed, the malfunction of the canals, and the absence of an adequate drainage system caused further delays in the flow of water into the sea, resulting in the area along the river banks to become vulnerable to flooding. The other problem is the decline in the quality and quantity of river water.”
“Generally land use types related to economic activity and development negative the impacts on water quality, so positive correlations exist between percentages of these land use types and concentrations of water pollutants, while undeveloped areas such as natural forest area are related to good water quality.”
“Urban land consists of various land uses such as residential, industrial, office, commercial, and other built-up area. Compared with other land use, urban land produces more wastewater. In addition, urbanization has expanded impervious areas, which has led to faster storm flows and greater runoff volumes. Impervious storm runoff washes all types of pollutants (e.g., non-point source and point source pollutants) into rivers, which increases concentrations of nutrients and other pollutants in surface waters. Besides, a shortage of wastewater treatment infrastructure in suburban areas also contributes to increased nitrogen levels.”
