THE DEVELOPMENT OF TOWN-PLANNING

Baku is a markedly different city from that of its past. Whether you like it or not, it is impossible to turn the clock back; the march of progress takes us further and further away from what was so dear to us in our childhood. There are people who cry tearfully: "Baku is no longer the same." But it is very difficult to understand whether people are really crying for their lost youth or the changing character of the city. Anyway, it is not only people on the street who are sceptical about the intensive construction work, or, to be more precise, the refurbishment, going on in the capital. Specialists, for example, point to the fact that, as a result of the construction boom, Baku lost its ring road. It was blocked by housing estates and high-rise buildings built in violation of the 1987 general development plan of Baku.

There are many more such violations, both known and unknown. Many absurdities are all too evident - the construction of a high-rise building in a courtyard "in close proximity" to five or six Khrushchev-era buildings; in the "green zone", which leads to the mass destruction of trees; construction work in places of public recreation; the haphazard construction of private houses near centralized communications and many other examples.

Opponents counter with their own arguments: the city is a living organism whose development cannot be halted. The construction of new buildings cannot be brought into line with any common standards in a market economy. What is more, obstructing private business would be a disaster. "Under the Soviets, construction plans were drawn up and implemented only by the state. There was no haphazard construction and, therefore, there were no violations of the general plan because only the state financed the development of town-planning. But Baku's housing stock fell into deficit because little money was invested in it. For the sake of fairness, it must be noted that the effects are still felt. Moreover, 40 per cent of the 1987 general plan of Baku has yet to be implemented. We cannot stop businessmen from building. Nor can we stop the demolition of one-storey houses and their replacement by high-rise buildings. This is a requirement of the times. Of course, every development has another side to it. Many people nowadays are against the construction of high-rise buildings. But I can give one simple example. The building that houses the Baku executive authority was built by the great architect, Jozef Goslawski, in 1904. As we know, under tsarist rule this beautiful building housed the Baku City Duma. Construction work began in 1900. If you dig deeper into the archive and look through the Kaspi newspaper published that year, you will see how many people opposed that construction work and how many critical articles were written on the subject. Despite that, the construction of this wonderful building continued. No-one regrets this now. If the arguments of the opponents had prevailed then, we would not now have such "music frozen in stone". It was built for us. Now we admire this building and derive aesthetic pleasure from it. I am sure that the meaning of what we are doing today will be understood and comprehended in years to come." The words of Mayor of Baku Hacibala Abutalibov in an interview on the subject of the current construction boom in Baku.

It is difficult not to agree with him, but it is also difficult to accept when you can see violations all over the place and when you think of the pain of people who lost their loved ones and relatives as a result of the collapse of a high-rise building in Baku in summer 2007. Time will never heal them. It is clear that there are now no masterpieces like those that Goslawski once created. But it is high time to consider where the interests of the state and the public begin and where the interests of the entrepreneur end.

It is time to think about the future

Zoning is the division of a territory into zones while planning the development of land, settlements and infrastructure, defining types of use for established zones and restrictions on their use. In other words, this is what we call the development of a new plan for the improvement of greater Baku. It really is time to rethink the concept of town planning for the city, but work to prepare it, i.e. the real work to implement it, will only end in 2012. Only then, will we understand whether we have drawn the right conclusions from our lessons and mistakes.

"The strategic zoning of the city is not a new general plan. It is more than a general plan," said the manager of the "Regional Development of Greater Baku" project of the State Town-Planning and Architecture Committee (STPAC), Fuad Cafarli, in conversation with R+. The development of a new general plan for Baku is a subject frequently discussed by the country's press. However, it is too early to carry out large-scale work to zone the whole of the Abseron Peninsula, Baku and Sumqayit under the term "New General Plan". According to Cafarli, work to draw up a strategic general plan for the Abseron Peninsula and Sumqayit began in March 2008. It is being carried out by the Azerbaijani government, in the form of the STPAC, on the basis of a credit agreement with the World Bank within the framework of a project to reconstruct the sewage and water pipeline systems of Baku.

"Yes, 40 per cent of the Baku general plan has yet to be implemented, but this does not mean at all that it is not out of date - this happened in 2005, although some elements of the previous general plan are still relevant. It is impossible to stop the process of urbanization, demographic growth and modernization of the infrastructure and we cannot take the old approach to the development of Baku and Sumqayit, due to the economic development of the whole country and IT technology," said Cafarli. According to this specialist, time and a huge amount of work are required to prepare a basic document determining a strategy for the capital's development. This is a very difficult project, requiring thorough analysis and the accurate calculation of many parameters. Negotiations on specific aspects of this project have already been held with the World Bank. The World Bank is ready to provide Azerbaijan with technical and financial assistance in developing components of the strategic planning and zoning of the Abseron peninsula which concern communications, transport, roads, the housing stock and so on. We should not forget that, in this case, we are talking not just about the development of Baku, but also about the development of the whole of the Abseron Peninsula, which is currently under great demographic pressure, has a worn-out infrastructure and many other negative factors," Cafarli added. He stressed that the urban infrastructure of Baku and Sumqayit was shaped in the pre-Soviet and Soviet periods, which is why the work currently under way to improve the traffic system and communications networks does not drastically alter the situation. "Thus the government intends to tackle the problem as a whole. The new strategic plan for Baku will cover the next 20 years. In terms of the dynamics of population growth, the document which provides for the development of housing stock and production areas in the city itself will also include the work necessary to develop suburban villages and settlements, as well as the relevant infrastructure. This plan will allow us to work out how the city will develop in the future and what its 'new face' will be," said the manager of the "Regional Development of Greater Baku" project.

From centre to centre 

The general plan of 1987 includes the Abseron Peninsula - 219,000 ha, including the area within the Baku amphitheatre - 22,100 ha, and the area of the city itself - 54,000 ha. The general plan was based upon the projected growth in the number of residents over the next 20 years, i.e. to 2,260,000 by 2006 and the housing stock - to 40.7 million square metres. But the housing stock of the city is currently 26.1 million square metres, while the number of registered residents is 1,840,800. The population will reach 2,260,000, with an annual growth of 12,000-15,000, only by 2020. A housing stock of 40 million square metres, from the current 26.1 million, may be reached by 2020, with an annual growth of 800,000 square metres (the current rate does not exceed 200,000 square metres). Thus we come to only 18 square metres per person, which is almost half of the figure for European capitals.

In fact, the population of Baku, including refugees, displaced persons and other undocumented residents, is no more and no less than four million. Such a position, which has arisen as a result of Armenian aggression, has a negative impact on the socioeconomic and town-planning situation in the city. In order to increase the economic efficiency of land-use, the general plan of 1987 envisaged the construction of buildings of varying heights - 22.3 million square metres of housing space. Of the overall volume of housing to be constructed, 5 per cent, or 1.1 million square metres of housing, would be five-storey buildings, mainly in the population centres of the suburban zone; 70 per cent, or 15.6 million square metres of housing - 9 or 10 storey buildings; and the remaining 25 per cent, or 5.57 million square metres of housing - 12, 14 and16 storey buildings on the main roads of the city, in consideration of the landscape, relief and the composition of the general plan of the city. The draft plan for building work detailed exactly the height of buildings in future neighbourhoods, as well as the complexes, sports and health centres and roads to be constructed.

"It seems to us that Baku is overstocked. Take a bird's eye view of Baku. You will see a lot of unused land in the residential part of the city. The population density within the administrative borders of the city (219,200 ha) does not exceed 10 people per hectare (in Moscow this figure is 118 people per hectare). To fulfil the general plan created by the efforts of Heydar Aliyev, and using market opportunities, it is necessary to knock down unsafe buildings which occupy up to 3,500 ha of land in order to build new multi-storey buildings with underground car parks, widen the streets and create independent engineering/communication networks and installations," The mayor of Baku, Hacibala Abutalibov, said in an interview with the local media. He believes that the general plan of 1987 should be implemented.

However, experts engaged in the development of the general plan of "Greater Baku" have a different opinion and, as part of the preparation of the strategic plan, the whole of the Abseron Peninsula will be zoned over the next two years. In other words, initial data will be analyzed. "We need to know what resources we have today. For example, we need to find out how much land has already been allocated - handed over to citizens both legally and illegally. Thus, information will be obtained as to how much free land is still available in Baku, Sumqayit and in the whole of the Abseron Peninsula. Then it is necessary to carry out a demographic recount. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that it is still not known how many people live on the Abseron Peninsula. This is a big problem, which is why the process will take some time, not to mention the fact that we will need to assess the condition of the infrastructure. This plan is only a drop in the ocean of the work to be done in the near future. Only after that, will economic and geographic changes be drawn up for the Abseron Peninsula, which should become a single organism that works like clockwork," Cafarli maintains.

Speaking about the town planning problems inside Baku, and asked whether the new plan for the development of the capital is a requirement of the time or an attempt to adapt the city to what has already been built legally and illegally, Cafarli observed that he partly agrees with the wave of indignation engulfing residents of Baku when they discuss the violations.

"Yes, I admit that the construction of some high-rise buildings, and the sites chosen for them, are not always suitable. In some cases, this process has been accompanied by violations. But I would like everyone to understand that any development has some negative aspects. The thing is that the space to expand the centre of Baku has run out, both in depth and in breadth. The Azerbaijani capital currently functions as an economic, housing and cultural centre. A small patch like Baku city centre cannot carry such colossal pressure. What's more, high-rise buildings are being built on this small patch," says Cafarli.

In his opinion, the creation and development of a second city centre in Baku, leaving the old centre relatively unchanged, could be a way out of the current situation. The modernization of the old centre may lead to an inevitable resettlement of people, which is not economically beneficial. "A square metre of housing space in the city centre is very expensive. And the state would not be able to buy up their flats. Even if this were done, significant amounts of money being paid to citizens would inevitably lead to a hike in real estate prices. For this reason, the creation and development of a second city centre in Baku is one of the main ideas behind the strategic planning of the capital of our country," concluded our specialist.

Cafarli is sure that the town-plan zoning and strategic planning of the Abseron Peninsula will help us to understand when we should prioritize state interests and when public interests. After all, it is time to transform the obsolete "general plan of the city" into a development of the economy and the town plan based on current reality - this is a huge, but necessary, undertaking.