Master Planning as Informal Negotiations?
Exploring the structure of opaque deal making between real estate markets and planning authorities for cities in India
Students will explore the political economy of real estate markets and their intersections with master planning processes. Master planning processes for cities in India are guided by archaic planning legislation that does not mandate a consultative process. Despite economic restructuring in India (1991), subsequent to which governments actively solicit markets to cater to public service delivery, urban planning legislation has still remained hidden behind the veil of technocracy. The absence of a consultative process still does not account for the framing of flexible regulatory conditions that respond to market buoyancy. Multiple markets, real estate, infrastructure and services (IT/ BT) thus appear to transact with planning authorities through opaque deals that circumvent the formal planning process in order to meet self-interest and not public interest. The outcomes are contentious, leading to capture of regulatory conditions by firms or adoption of development paradigms such as urban sprawl, that do not contribute to sustainable development.
While much research has been conducted on the disposition of the planning authority in master planning, research in the area of how markets respond to master plans and development control regulations still needs to be explored for cities in India. Given this gap in research, students will work with private sector firms and markets as a prime area of focus. In spatial planning real estate markets form one of the key stakeholders/ interest groups. Students will thus focus on real estate firms as the key units of analysis, in relation to master planning processes. The objective is three-fold: one, to understand fiscal and value driven relationships between the planning authority and real estate firms and the real estate market as a whole; two, to understand strategies that firms in the real estate market employ in order to capture master planning processes or framing of development control regulations. A third parallel objective is to understand how informal deals are structured between real estate firms and firms and the planning authorities/ political agents in order to capture regulations for their own vested interest. By gaining an understanding of the nature of actor relationships and the structure of deal making, students will incorporate demands of real estate markets and craft law, policy, process innovations/ interventions to alleviate the problem of opaque decision making.
