My City My Responsibility - Access to Open Spaces to all

Dear All, 

Last year, we collected a few citizens' perspectives on certain issues related to Urban Sustainability. These included Housing, Transport, Governance or Peoples Participation, Heritage (both Cultural and Natural), Waste management and Air pollution, Disaster Risk Assessment and Green Open Spaces. For relating it to a broader vision, we used the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework especially the SDG 11 which deals with making cities and settlements sustainable. We compiled all citizens inputs and formed the Citizens Charter for Sustainable Pune. In our event on Citizens Charter and Action Agenda for Sustainable Pune we shared the same document with all of you. On analyzing all the Citizen inputs, we realized that if these inputs are put up as actionable points it will be a good guideline to follow by all.

Previous blogs focused on Housing, Transport, Participatory planning and Management, Cultural & Natural Heritage and Disaster Prepardness for all, Environmental management for all under SDG 11. The last target under SDG 11 is about access to open spaces that are green, safe and inclusive. 

Lets see how can we achieve this one.  

Firstly, there is a need to define the open spaces appropriately, since there are some open spaces which should promote people’s interaction and recreation while there are some open spaces that should have minimal to low human interference so that they are retained as the lungs of the city. Identifying such spaces is essential. Based on the mapping, spaces that are suitable for people’s recreation should be designed in an inclusive manner considering all the stakeholders in the society. Open spaces that are green need to be kept with minimal human intervention and can be used for educational purposes or simply for restoration of the local ecosystem. From our survey we found that Pune has enough of public open spaces but the safety, inclusiveness and affordability is a matter of concern in such places. While we are encroaching upon a lot of green open spaces that need to be restored or simply kept untouched.    

  Individual Level

• Let’s use our public spaces in a responsible manner by not littering or spitting in such space.
• Let’s preserve and conserve our green open spaces like rivers, gardens and parks as well in a responsible manner.

Community Level

• Let’s advocate for safe public spaces for all.
• Let’s work with the governing authorities in maintaining these spaces since community ownership comes with community participation.
• Let’s advocate for an inclusively designed open space.
• Let’s keep a watch that no illegal or criminal activities are happening in these spaces that harm the peace in the city, check the feasibility of working with the governing authorities for volunteering for such purposes.
• Let’s advocate for better sanitation facilities in public spaces.
• Let’s check the feasibility of using these spaces in a creative manner which enhances the social and cultural gathering that reduce the gap between different sections of the society.

Governance Level

• Ensure that public spaces are designed in an inclusive manner considering a holistic approach.
• Explore the feasibility of maintaining cleanliness, through signages and instructions for people in order to maintain the spaces.
• In case of any garden or green area that needs to be created into a public space care should be taken to keep them as natural as possible instead of adding a lot of paving or concrete in these areas.
• Strict enforcement and penalties should be levied on illegal or criminal activities noticed in any public space.
• The fees if any for accessing the public spaces should be affordable to all sections of the society.
• Riverbed areas, hill slopes or hill tops accessed by people should be demarcated as green areas and no construction zones in the Development Plan.
• Ensure that any green public space should promote biodiversity conservation and should be maintained accordingly.

This is last blog in the series of blogs on targets under SDG11. Please send in your inputs and suggestions to us on our Facebook page: Citizens of Sustainable Pune. Also please like, comment and share our page, through which we are promoting Sustainable cities. You can also email me at pournima@samuchit.com.

Pournima Agarkar.

    www.samuchit.com

My City My Responsibility - Participatory Planning and Management

Dear All, 

Participation and Integrated planning & Management

Last year, we collected a few citizens' perspectives on certain issues related to Urban Sustainability. These included Housing, Transport, Governance or Peoples Participation, Heritage (both Cultural and Natural), Waste management and Air pollution, Disaster Risk Assessment and Green Open Spaces. For relating it to a broader vision, we used the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework especially the SDG 11 which deals with making cities and settlements sustainable. We compiled all citizens inputs and formed the Citizens Charter for Sustainable Pune. In our event on Citizens Charter and Action Agenda for Sustainable Pune we shared the same document with all of you. On analyzing all the Citizen inputs, we realized that if these inputs are put up as actionable points it will be a good guideline to follow by all.

So far we have seen targets related to Housing and Transport under SDG 11. The next target is all about having participatory, integrated and sustainable planning and management of human settlements. 

In the city planning and management, participatory approach is easier SAID than DONE. I feel there is a need to define 'inclusive participation' so as to ensure participation from all the strata of the society. However only a few people get the privilege to participate in any decision making, planning process and management. During our survey we found that there is something called as participatory budget, however very few people are aware of such an initiative. This is also due to lack of empathy among citizens towards their city's overall growth. However, its time we start getting aware of our surroundings and make ourselves sustainable.

Lets us see what the citizens have to say about their participation in the overall planning and management of the city.

Individual Level: 

• Be aware of your rights and duties as a citizen of the city.
• Use RTI as a tool for enabling the rights of a citizen.
• Participate in the city's planning and management systems.
• Check if we have any ward level meetings in our ward. 
• Need for empathy towards our society. 

Community Level: 

• Mohalla committee's are good examples of community participation, more and more people should involve themselves in this system for ensuring their area development. 
• Lets understand the functioning of similar systems like area sabhas and advocate for the same. 
• Lets keep track of upcoming policies and schemes and how they affect our area 
• Lets raise voice in case of poor provision of basic service in your area and work cohesively with the local bodies in order to ensure services are in place.

Governance Level: 

• Ensure use of scientific sampling techniques for collecting feedback proactively from a well chosen sample cross section of the city's society on various schemes and policies (rather than expecting people from all strata of society to respond to generic requests for comments). 
• Involve local citizen groups, civil society organizations, Mohalla committee groups, Resident welfare associations, differently abled individuals etc. in governance-focused public discussions to make governance inclusive. 
• Need to have an active feedback mechanism in order to track success and failure of any policy. 
• Need to have a mechanism to reward or highlight community best practices that ensure success of any scheme or policy. 
• Enforce wardwise community meetings ensuring involvement of all irrespective of caste, creed, gender or income level. 
• Ensure transparency and accessibility of information to all in existing/current schemes/policies on urban development.

These are a few key inputs given by 200 odd people, we are looking for more such inputs and suggestions from you in order to make our Citizens Charter a better Action Agenda. 

Email me at pournima@samuchit.com OR like, share and comment on our FB page  @ https://www.facebook.com/SustainableCityPune/

Pournima Agarkar.

www.samuchit.com

My City My Responsibility - Role of Housing for All

Dear All, 

Housing under SDG

Last year, we collected a few citizens' perspectives on certain issues related to Urban Sustainability. These included Housing, Transport, Governance or Peoples Participation, Heritage both Cultural and Natural, Waste management and Air pollution, Disaster Risk Assessment and lastly Green Open Spaces. For relating it to a broader vision, we used the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework especially the SDG 11 which deals with making cities and settlements sustainable. We compiled all citizens inputs and formed the Citizens Charter for Sustainable Pune. In our event on Citizens Charter and Action Agenda for Sustainable Pune we shared the same document with all of you. 

On analyzing all the Citizen inputs, we realized that if these inputs are put up as actionable points it will be a good guideline to follow by all. So today I am going to share actionable points under the issue of Housing. 

Just a background on why Housing for All is an illusion. Today we have many upcoming residential construction schemes in the city and simultaneously we are also seeing upcoming slums in the city. The whole issue under 'Housing for All' does not really consider providing shelter for the slums and the lower income strata of the society. In fact, upcoming housing schemes focus on middle and higher income groups who often buy new houses just as future investment. While the ones who are in need of affordable and accessible housing are rendered in substandard settlements. 

This is in a way adding enormous pressure on the city for its resources, management and overall sustainability. We thought of drafting the actions at an individual level, Community level and Government level based on the citizens inputs on this matter. 

Individual Level

• Consider if there is a need to buy a new house. 
• If yes, check that the house that you will be buying adheres to required certifications for safety, waste management, wastewater treatment etc. 
• Environmental Clearance or an NOC from the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (MOEFCC) is mandatory today for any new construction. As a vigilant citizen of the city, you should ask for the same and check that environmental services are in place in accordance of certificate. 
• Especially the water supply, drainage connection, rainwater harvesting mechanisms, fire safety measures and waste management systems are in place. 

Community Level

• If there are any slums around your residence, think before considering these as a nuisance. Most likely the maid in your house, the handyman around your building complex, etc., come from the same locality. As a community lets advocate for provision of better basic facilities for them like adequate water supply, better waste collection system, electricity supply, drainage connection and medical help through a participatory planning process.
• Let's advocate for ensuring that they get appropriate help in case of disasters or emergencies. 
• Let's advocate for better housing for them that are disaster resilient and based on green building concepts.
• Majority of political parties look at slums only as their vote bank, but as a community the entire neighborhood needs to exert political pressure to ensure better facilities for the slums. This will also ensure better hygiene and air and water quality in the entire locality. 

Government Level

• Livelihoods of the urban poor are typically in the neighborhood of the slums. Therefore the slum rehabilitation must happen on the same location, rather than displacing the slum dwellers to some remote locations. 
• Under Housing for All it is important to consider the slums and low income groups from affordability, safety, facilities/services perspective that are also essential in keeping the city as a whole clean and livable.  
• Considering access to the differently-abled in planning housing schemes for the low income groups is crucial. 
• Subsidy can be provided to the Economically weaker sections (EWS) of the society for buying houses with tax benefits to the developers for providing such housing. 
• Housing audit where houses are examined from safety and disaster resilience perspective should be considered. 
• Green building materials are important from the perspective of efficient resource use and low carbon footprint. Use of such materials should be encouraged and research in this field should be funded. 

These inputs are given by some 200 odd people, we are looking for more such inputs and suggestions from you in order to make our Citizens Charter for Housing a better action agenda. Email me at pournima@samuchit.com OR visit our FB page at https://www.facebook.com/SustainableCityPune/

Pournima Agarkar. 

www.samuchit.com

My City My Responsibility - Citizens meet for Sustainable Pune

Dear All, 

Are you concerned about your city? Do you want to take any action that will help make your city Sustainable? Are you curious to know what all can be done to make your city pollution free, congestion free, green, clean, safe and sustainable?

Then you should attend our event on Citizens Charter, a LIVE document, as mentioned in my earlier blog .We are drafting the same and it will be available to all at our Citizens meet happening on the 30th Jan, 2019 at Sumant Moolgaokar Auditorium, MCCIA Trade Tower from 6 to 8 pm.
Food arrangements have been made for all, hence kindly RSVP me at pournima@samuchit.com for your participation. 

The event will feature engaging and interactive activities, where you get to meet active citizens of the city, who will share their work, which is creating a huge impact in making their community sustainable. Since the document is LIVE, your comments, suggestions are welcome. There will be experts in the event with whom you can share your concerns or any issues that you have been trying to resolve. If would like to be part of this network see you soon!

Looking forward to meet you all.

Pournima Agarkar. 

www.samuchit.com

My City My Responsibility - Reflecting on #UrbanLab workshop about Smart spaces (Part I)

Dear All,

I would like to share my reflections on a workshop, that I recently attended on Development of smart spaces under the #UrbanLab series of workshop organised by Indo-German Smart Initiative (IGSI) in Pune city supported by Dr. Bhanuben Nanavati College of Architecture (BNCA) and National Institute of Urban Affairs, Delhi. 

I missed the first day, however managed to sync in with a group of creative architects on the second day who were working on creating smart spaces. Our task with this topic was to identify the need and issues related to creating smart spaces and coming up with alternatives. 

Before proceeding further, I would like to highlight that the location where the workshop was conducted was a seminar hall named Bhauudeshiya Bhavan on baner road a municipal initiative for social development. This place apparently had NO USABLE TOILETS as good as having no toilets which I think is a basic need for any community space. The space for toilets was demarcated but not built. There was enough parking space, though! I wonder what's the intention of designing a community place without a provision of a functioning toilet??? In this era of Sustainability where we talk about inclusive designing having toilets for all the members of the society considering the differently-abled persons, senior citizens, women etc..This particular community space lacked providing a basic feature that too in an area which is being developed under the smart city area development scheme. (Note: The organizing team was completely unaware of this aspect and some last minute scrambling had to be done to deal with the problem.) 

Anyway, I was glad to have a group where all of us believed in understanding the NEED of creating a smart space in the first place, instead of just creating something for the sake of it. Also I understood that creating a smart space was not only about creating something new, its also about making optimum usage of any existing space.

Interviewing the local milk supplier

For instance, consider roads. The basic features a road should have is a proper storm water drainage system, access to parking spaces, usable cycle tracks, walkable footpaths, solar powered LED street lights etc... however while conducting a random survey on the Highstreet road in Baner all the above mentioned features of a road were missing on this 'so called posh' street which comes under the smart city area development plan. We observed water logging on the roads due to inappropriate storm water drains, footpaths were tagged with cycle track boards and the recently introduced PEDL cycles under the Pune Cycle Plan were parked on footpaths. However this footpath was blocked even for walking due to some concrete structure and pipes. On the other side, we could see a lot of paved area right in front of the hotels that were completely vacant probably because it was morning time.

Privately owned company buses were parked on the road reducing the driving space of the road. The road on one side had tall corporate companies with glass facades and hotels, bars plus luxurious residential societies on the other side.

Vacant space in front of hotels

We were searching for some localites to ask our queries, we met just one local milk supplier who stayed around 3-4 km away from this street. He mentioned that this place is very crowded in the evenings causing heavy traffic jam in the area since most of the people come to hang out in these hotels and bars. When asked about improvement in quality of life, he replied that he is happy just because of the increased income growth and schooling facility for his children but was sad that his family does not like to come to his shop and that they saw a loss of local culture. He felt like he has lost his hometown. A local person felt like an alien in his own place. 

Another highlight of this area is the Energize Park  - a smart 

Energize Park

initiative by the municipality to create an environment friendly public space. The park has solar powered street lights, seating areas, library (but no books! Basically it is just a space for reading i guess!), a yoga center and lots of greenery. However one of the residents of this area said that we don't really visit this place because our society's open space is much better and greener. Some people visit the park mostly in the evening, but some people don't know that such a place even exist.

I feel this is another example of a planning disaster because this space seems to be created either without even checking if it was needed at this location or may be they have failed to promote its significance and hence it is under utilized.

With all these observations and inputs we were supposed to come up with a prototype of solution. 

I will write about our solutions prototype in my next blog. Happy learning!!!

Pournima Agarkar. 

www.samuchit.com