Dipika Pradhan. Rebuilding upon Social Resilience

Rebuilding upon Social Resilience: Post-Earthquake Reconstruction Challenges, Opportunities & Ways Forward in Kathmandu Valley (2017-06-09) Dipika Pradhan

Thesis submitted to obtain the degree of Master in Human Settlements, Supervisor: Prof. Bruno De Meulder Prof. Viviana d’Auria

Academic Year 2016 - 2017

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Foreword First and foremost I want to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Bruno De Meulder and Prof.

Viviana d’Auria for his supervision and throughout guidance during the preparation of this dissertation.

I would also want to extend my deepest appreciation to all the jury members of my previous presentations Viviana d’Auria, Hilde Heynen, Pieter Van den Broeck and Joris Scheers for their valuable comments and suggestions and also to all the teachers of the department for their sincere teaching, especially Bieke Cattoor for her encouragement. I owe my gratitude to Angeliki Paidakaki (Phd researcher, KU Leuven) and) for being the reader and helping me to make the research more focused. I am also thankful to Prof. Ajay Chandra Lal (Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Central Campus Pulchowk, Institute of Engineering, Tribhuwan University) for being my local reader and his valuable comments for improvisation towards the end of my research.

My sincere gratitude to all the informants Mr. Surya Shangachhe (NSET),Dr. Uttar Kumar Regmi (KMC), Mr. Macha Raja Maharjan, Mr. Krishna Sadan Awal, Ram Shrestha (J-RAPID),Dr. Kirti Kusum Joshi , Ramesh Maharjan and Madan Maharjan for sharing their knowledge, experience and information without which this thesis would have not been completed.

Lastly, I would like to express my profound appreciation to my family and friends for their support and inspiration during the course of my research period. I thank my husband Manish Shrestha and cousin Preety for their suggestive comments that refined this thesis.

Dipika Pradhan

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Table of Contents Foreword

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….iii

Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................................ iv Prelude

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………vii

Abstract

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….ix

List of figures and tables................................................................................................................................ x List of figures................................................................................................................................................................... x List of tables ...................................................................................................................................................................xi List of abbreviations and symbols .......................................................................................................... xii Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1

Background .......................................................................................................................................................1

1.2

Introduction to Study Area: Kathmandu Valley .................................................................................2

1.2.1

Formation of Kathmandu Valley:....................................................................................................3

1.2.2

Traditional towns and its sustainable and disaster resilient features ............................4

1.2.3

Development Dynamics and consequent vulnerability ........................................................6

1.3

Statement of the Problem............................................................................................................................7

1.4

Rationale of proposed research ................................................................................................................9

1.5

Research problem........................................................................................................................................ 10

1.6

Scope and Limitation of the Study ........................................................................................................ 10

1.7

Outcomes of Research................................................................................................................................ 11

Chapter 2.

Approach and methods ..................................................................................................... 12

2.1

Research Paradigm: .................................................................................................................................... 12

2.2

Research Strategies: ................................................................................................................................... 13

2.2.1

Literature Review: ............................................................................................................................. 13

2.2.2

Case study Approach ........................................................................................................................ 13

2.3

Methods of data Collection ...................................................................................................................... 14

2.3.1

Pre field visit desk research and data collection strategies ............................................. 15

2.3.2

On field visit data collection: ......................................................................................................... 15

2.4

Methods of Data Processing and Analysis ......................................................................................... 17

2.4.1

Coding & Categorising:..................................................................................................................... 18

2.4.2

Identification of common themes and essence: .................................................................... 18

Chapter 3.

3.1

Literature Review ............................................................................................................... 19

Disaster, Vulnerability and Resilience ................................................................................................ 19 iv

3.2

Resilience, social resilience and urban resilience: ......................................................................... 20

3.3

Resilience as a critical guiding concept for reconstruction ........................................................ 23

3.4

Reconstruction as a collaborative approach: ................................................................................... 24

3.5

Grassroots Participation & Collaboration.......................................................................................... 25

3.6

Conceptual Framework ............................................................................................................................. 26

Chapter 4.

Government’s Response to Recovery .......................................................................... 28

4.1

Government’s Reconstruction and Recovery initiatives ............................................................. 28

4.2

Housing reconstruction approach: ....................................................................................................... 30

4.3

Review of Byelaws: ..................................................................................................................................... 31

Chapter 5.

Case Study of Pilachhen redevelopment Project ..................................................... 34

5.1

Research Methodology .............................................................................................................................. 34

5.2

Introduction to Study Area: ..................................................................................................................... 34

5.2.1

Historical Evolution and socio-spatial settlement characteristics ................................ 34

5.2.2

Transformation trajectory prior to disaster ........................................................................... 38

5.2.3

Impact of Disaster: ............................................................................................................................. 42

5.3

Social resilience ............................................................................................................................................ 42

5.4

Exogenous Forces fostering resilience ............................................................................................... 44

5.5

Government as an exogenous force hindering social resilience .............................................. 46

5.6

Reflection of Social resilience on Socio-spatial Aspect ................................................................ 46

5.7

Complications in the Project: .................................................................................................................. 48

5.8

Conclusion of the Chapter ........................................................................................................................ 49

Chapter 6.

Case Study of Tekhacho Reconstruction Project ..................................................... 50

6.1

Research Methodology .............................................................................................................................. 50

6.2

Introduction to Study Area ...................................................................................................................... 50

6.2.1

Historical Evolution and Socio-spatial characteristics ....................................................... 50

6.2.2

Transformation Trajectory and Development Dynamics.................................................. 53

6.2.3

Impact of Disaster: ............................................................................................................................. 54

6.3

Social resilience ............................................................................................................................................ 55

6.4

Exogenous forces fostering Social resilience ................................................................................... 56

6.5

Government as an exogenous force hindering social resilience .............................................. 58

6.6

Challenges in Reconstruction ................................................................................................................. 59

6.6.1 6.7

Conclusion of the Chapter ........................................................................................................................ 60

Chapter 7.

7.1

Financial Challenge and exploration of way out ................................................................... 59 Case Study of Kilagal Urban Regeneration Project ................................................. 62

Research Methodology: ............................................................................................................................. 62

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7.2

Introduction to Study area ....................................................................................................................... 62

7.2.1

Historical Evolution and Socio-spatial Characteristics ...................................................... 62

7.2.2

Transformation Trajectory Prior to Disaster ......................................................................... 66

7.2.3

Impact of Disaster and Need of Social Resilience: ................................................................ 67

7.3

Endogenous forces hindering Social Resilience: ............................................................................ 68

7.4

Exogenous forces fostering Social resilience ................................................................................... 71

7.4.1

Role of National Society of Earthquake Technology (NSET)............................................ 71

7.4.2

Role of government: .......................................................................................................................... 73

7.5

Reflection of Social resilience on Socio-spatial Aspect ................................................................ 74

7.6

Conclusion of the Chapter ........................................................................................................................ 75

Chapter 8.

Discussion and Conclusion .............................................................................................. 76

8.1

Endogenous Forces fostering social resilience................................................................................ 76

8.2

Endogenous forces hindering social resilience ............................................................................... 78

8.3

Exogenous forces fostering Social Resilience .................................................................................. 80

8.4

Exogenous forces hindering social resilience .................................................................................. 81

8.5

Consequence of Social Resilience Manifestations on Development Dynamics .................. 83

8.6

Recommendations for building and sustaining social resilience............................................. 86

8.7

Recommendation for further research:.............................................................................................. 88

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………89 Master’s Thesis file .................................................................................................................................................... 96

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Prelude On the day of earthquake…..

I still recall that moment of early afternoon on a lazy Saturday of 25th April 2015 when all of a sudden the floor started to shake, furniture started to fall obstructing the corridor and me and my mother in law stood under the beam, remembering what we were taught in school and in several radio announcements to be one of the safest place during an occurrence of earthquake.

In that short duration of few seconds, the roaring sound from underneath the ground, those cracking sound from different parts of that framed structured building and that continuous movement which swayed between slow, gradual and intense, made me think that this could just be the end of all. I recalled my family who were residing in another part of the city, a core area of traditional town of Patan, where buildings were older, exit was complicated through narrow staircase and alleys of limited width.

As the earthquake settled for a while, I and my family stepped out of the house in search of a safer open space. Everyone from the neighbourhood were on street, the fear and anxiety clearly reflecting on their faces , more so on those whose family members were not there at the moment.

The street and the little empty plot became the gathering place of the whole neighbourhood, known and unknown, new renters and old inhabitants, of all caste and of all religious background. The calamity of an instance and for the following few days of the repetitive aftershock brought all the community member together to help one another cope with the situation.

Though the mobile network was not functioning properly, however news and images of temples, monuments and houses that collapsed flashed all over internet. These made me worried more about the situation in the core, where half of my family was still there, though by now I managed to contact confirming their wellbeing. When the situation was little under control, and safety of the vulnerable (old) members assured after finding a safer open space in the premises of airport, more so with the presence of the community member in the surrounding, I could not stop myself from going to my house in the core and see by myself how they were coping.

The following day…….

Though the situation was same, the scenario there was a little different than the newly developed residential area where I was now living in. My garden and the bigger kitchen garden in the backyard had become a refuse area for almost 200 people in the neighbourhood including members of our extended family, our old neighbours, our new temporary neighbours (renters) and also people from a little further. Water, lights, tents, toilets were collectively managed by the young and active members of the community. Clearly the disaster brought the community together and became a platform for demonstrating altruism, solidarity and mutual aid in emergency situation. This situation lasted for days as the recurring aftershocks and the old and fragile buildings didn’t let people to go back to their houses, especially for sleeping during night.

On my way back from the core area I could see people settling on both sides of the buffer space beside the under-construction ring road. The sequence of open spaces were all occupied either by the rubbles of destructed buildings or by the tents installed for temporary shelter. It makes

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me wonder now that the traditional urban form that has different hierarchy of open spaces planned some 1000 years ago, doesn’t suffice the need of open space in an occurrence of disaster this like this one in today’s context. Clearly the open space and population ratio has been misbalanced. The bigger question now is how can the city be built again? In what ways and through what means to assure less severity in terms of its impact the next time.

Slowly the people started to go back to normalcy. The migrants returned back to their home towns, those whose houses were less damaged moved back , others with severe damage went to the relatives’ house for certain duration and many whose house were severely damaged but didn’t had an option of residing elsewhere were compelled to adjust themselves back in the fragile building. From the day on till today reconstruction has been a challenge, especially for those living in the core area, that in itself is a complicated physical form along with the economic constrain and no financial back up plans and a legislative complication due to shared ownership, fragmented plots and new reconstruction bye laws.

Dipika Pradhan

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Abstract Nepal experienced one of its most disastrous earthquake of magnitude 7.8 on 25th April 2015 that led to immense loss of life and property. Though the epicentre of earthquake was in Gorkha district, its impact in Kathmandu was nonetheless huge as most of its buildings including major monuments were turned into rubbles. Through one perspective, the situation is a challenge to rebuild the settlement maintaining its original characteristic fabric addressing its physical, social, political and economic constrains. However looking from a more positive lens this is an opportunity to reconstruct in a better and more resilient way to minimise the extent of such disaster in future.

The central argument of this paper is that substantial lessons towards post-earthquake reconstruction can be drawn from examining how traditional urban core of Kathmandu have possessed resilience in built form as well as social and economic perspective towards post disaster scenario in the past. This thesis explores the characteristics of these traditional towns in terms of its earthquake responsiveness and social resilience as well as its present day relevance.

With the help of three case studies of emerging reconstruction models in core area of Lalitpur, Bhaktapur and Kathmandu, the paper examines different approaches of reconstruction, level of social resilience, role of government, source of finance and other various aspects. Further existing policies and byelaws are reviewed at a macro level to analyse how they have been fostering or hindering the resilient reconstruction process.

At the end, based on comparative critical analysis of local cases and in-depth literatures review, relevant inclusive technique suitable for the reconstruction of traditional urban core of Kathmandu valley will be suggested along with some policy level recommendations.

KEYWORDS: Post-Earthquake reconstruction, Traditional core of Kathmandu Valley, Social Resilience.

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List of figures and tables List of figures Figure 1. Location of Nepal in World Map ...............................................................................................................1 Figure 2 Location Map of Kathmandu Valley and its Municipal Boundaries ............................................3 Figure 3 Formation of Kathmandu valley from lake ...........................................................................................3 Figure 4 Three dimensional topographical map showing Kathmandu valley ..........................................4 Figure 5. Map of Kathmandu highlighting traditional core settlements .....................................................4 Figure 6 Methodology Framework .......................................................................................................................... 12 Figure 7 Conceptual Framework .............................................................................................................................. 27 Figure 8 Earthquake affected districts of Nepal ................................................................................................. 28 Figure 9 Location Map of Pilachhen ........................................................................................................................ 34 Figure 10 Cardinal streets forming the main spine of Patan ........................................................................ 35 Figure 11 Diagonal Street parallel to existing contour.................................................................................... 35 Figure 12 Festival Route .............................................................................................................................................. 35 Figure 13 Jyapu Settlement in Patan and Balkumari Festival Route ......................................................... 36 Figure 14 Tissues Analysis of Pilachhen ............................................................................................................... 39 Figure 15 Sattal (Left); Ganesh Temple (Right) ................................................................................................. 40 Figure 16 Lachhi (1)....................................................................................................................................................... 40 Figure 17 Nani (2)........................................................................................................................................................... 40 Figure 18 Chuka with Chiba (Religious Shrine) (3) .......................................................................................... 40 Figure 19 Pictorial Analysis of Existing Scenario .............................................................................................. 41 Figure 20 Damaged residential buildings and vulnerable alleys ................................................................ 42 Figure 21 Local and volunteer’s Participation in Project execution .......................................................... 43 Figure 22 Proposal for Reconstruction by CE Solutions ................................................................................. 47 Figure 23 Stakeholders Diagram .............................................................................................................................. 49 Figure 24 Location Map of Tekhacho (Kaminani) ............................................................................................. 50

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Figure 25 Map of old Bhaktapur showing Pith of eight mother goddesses limiting city boundary, trade route, festival route and Spinal Street ........................................................................................................ 51 Figure 26 Spatial Features of Kaminani................................................................................................................. 52 Figure 27 Incremental housing Practice ............................................................................................................... 53 Figure 28 Impact of Disaster ...................................................................................................................................... 54 Figure 29 Kaminani First Option .............................................................................................................................. 56 Figure 30 Kaminani Third Option ............................................................................................................................ 57 Figure 31 Kaminani Second Option ......................................................................................................................... 57 Figure 32 Stakeholder Diagram ................................................................................................................................ 61 Figure 33 Location Map of Kilagal............................................................................................................................ 62 Figure 34 Map of old Kathmandu ............................................................................................................................. 63 Figure 35 Map of Dumbo Chowk .............................................................................................................................. 65 Figure 36 Housing situation of Kilagal ................................................................................................................... 66 Figure 37 Degrading Condition of Courtyards and surrounding building .............................................. 67 Figure 38 Buildings instigating vulnerability to alleys.................................................................................... 68 Figure 39 Regeneration Plan Option 1 ................................................................................................................... 71 Figure 41 Regeneration Plan Option 2 ................................................................................................................... 72 Figure 40 Regeneration Plan Option 3 (by KMC) .............................................................................................. 72 Figure 42 Stakeholder Diagram ................................................................................................................................ 75

List of tables Table 1 Method of Data Collection ........................................................................................................................... 16 Table 2 Various definition of Resilience ................................................................................................................ 20 Table 3 Various definition of social resilience .................................................................................................... 21

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List of abbreviations and symbols CBO GoN KVDA KMC LSMC NSET NPR NPC NRA ODA PDNA PDRF USGS VDC

Community Based Organisation Government of Nepal Kathmandu Valley Development Authority Kathmandu Metropolitan City Lalitpur Sub Metropolitan City National Society for Earthquake Technology in Nepal Nepalese Rupees Nepal Planning Commission Nepal Reconstruction Authority Owner Driven Approach Post Disaster Need Assessment Post Disaster Recovery Framework United States Geological Survey Village Development Committee

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Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Background

Figure 1. Location of Nepal in World Map Source: http://geology.com/world/nepal-satellite-image.shtml

Nepal is a landlocked country situated between China in the north and India in the east, west and south in the Asia Pacific. It is the 11th most earthquake prone country in the world that lies in fourth seismic vulnerable zone. The country is positioned at the boundary of young and active Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates which makes it more vulnerable to natural calamities like earthquake. The capital, Kathmandu, lies in an active earthquake belt with a recurring history of earthquake of magnitude close to 8M (Magnitude) every 80 to 100 years.

The first recorded severe earthquake experienced by Nepal was in 1255 that claimed one third of the total population of the Kathmandu valley (Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur) including the king, Abhaya Malla himself. However, various researchers (Marahatta, 2009; Pant, 2002) claim that earthquake as severe as that had occurred 24th December, 1223, 32 years before the first recorded event. Similarly, numerous other earthquakes were recorded in 1260, 1344, 1408, 1681, 1767, 1808, 1934, 1996, 1980,

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1988 and 2011. The 1934 earthquake was the most catastrophic earthquake, which was of 8.4 Magnitude killing 10,000 people, until Nepal experienced another one in 2015.

On Saturday, 25th April 2015 at 11:56 local time, Nepal was hit by 7.8 magnitude earthquake with its epicentre located in a village called Barpark, a historic district of Gorkha. United States Geological Survey (USGS) claims that this was the consequence of tectonic disturbance between Indian plate and Eurasia plate. Its impact was further worsen by several aftershocks that followed the main event. More than 330 aftershocks with magnitude greater than 4 were recorded among which the 6.7 M aftershock on 26th April and 7.3 M on 12th May were recorded as major ones. The disastrous earthquake and its recurring aftershocks affected 31 districts, out of which 14 districts were declared ‘crisis hit’. 8,790 people lost their lives and 22,300 people were seriously injured. 498,852 houses, 2,656 government offices, 19,000 classrooms and numerous monumental heritages were subsequently destroyed. Similarly 256,697 houses, 3,622 government buildings and 11,000 classrooms were seriously damaged. Even though Kathmandu valley was 76km away from the epicentre of the earthquake, the city suffered immensely from this calamity. There were 1,735 deaths and 13,102 serious injuries in the valley alone. (PDNA; PDRF) Through one perspective, this twin earthquake bear a resemblance to a ‘curse’ that has pushed the developing notion of the country further backward through its physical, social and economic impact. However looking from a more positive lens, this situation can be turned into an opportunity to reconstruct the valley in a better and resilient way to minimise the extent of such disasters in future. Nonetheless the underlying challenge is to rebuild the traditional settlement maintaining its original characteristic addressing its physical, social, political and economic constraints. The existing social resilient feature of the society and built environment which is the product of inherent cultural practices and construction technology could be taken as a point of reference to initiate the reconstruction and recovery effort. This research intend to explore these very conundrums through conceptual and practical viewpoints.

1.2 Introduction to Study Area: Kathmandu Valley Kathmandu is an oval shaped valley that lies 1,400 metres (4000 to 5000 feet) above ground level and is surrounded by mountains in all direction. It has a comfortable climatic condition and fertile land suitable of rice farming and growing other seasonal crops. Kathmandu is the capital city of Nepal with total area of 72,181 Ha and population of 2,429,279. Administratively speaking, it consists of 21 municipalities and 8 village development committees. There are 5 urban areas namely Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Kirtipur and Madhyapur Thimi. 9,669 Ha out of its total area falls under urban category with 1,426,641 population exerting Population Density of 148. (Census Report, 2011). These demographic figures are annually accelerating with growth rate of 1.35% over the country and 4.63% in the valley. The valley exhibits cultural richness, architectural extravagance and demographic diversity all moulded to form its identity.

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Figure 2 Location Map of Kathmandu Valley and its Municipal Boundaries

(Source: GoN)

The indigenous inhabitants of the valley are Newars with either Hindu or Buddhism as religious inclination. Besides, there are people following other religions such as Muslims. Christianity, etc. that adds to its cosmopolitan cultures. Moreover, people from different castes, religious and cultural background today live in harmony in its heterogeneous society.

1.2.1 Formation of Kathmandu Valley:

120,000 years ago

30,000 years ago

Figure 3 Formation of Kathmandu valley from lake

15,000 years ago Source: nepalitimes.com

Mythology suggests that Kathmandu valley used to be a huge lakein the past. This is also proven by geological evidences which suggests that over one million years ago , due to tectonic uplift of the southern edge of the valley and blockade of Bagmati Rver, a lake was formed near Katuwal Daha. As the southern rim of valley rose, the whole valley became lake untill 30,000 years ago. As the ice age cooled down, the water body craved 3

its way through the soft limestone at Chobhar, leaving behind three smaller lakes at Gokarna, Pashupati and Kitni. As these lakes further diminished, platues were formed which were seperated by the tributaries of Bagmati river (Dixit, 2010).

Source: https://www.semanticscholar.org/

Figure 4 Three dimensional topographical map showing Kathmandu valley

1.2.2 Traditional towns and its sustainable and disaster resilient features

Lalitpur

Figure 5. Map of Kathmandu highlighting traditional core settlements Source: F. P. Hosken, 1974, The Kathmandu Valley Towns: A Record of Life and Change in Nepal

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The traditional urban form and spatial pattern of Kathmandu valley is the contribution of several dynasties such as Kirat, Lichhavis, Malla, Shahs and Ranas who successively ruled its territory from past 2000 years (Gutschow, 2011) and subsequently modified the spatial features of the settlement to secure its territory from outside intrusion. It also reflects their religious inclination, political strength, love for aesthetics and economic and social lifestyle of its inhabitant. The rich history of city planning in Kathmandu started with development of settlements called ‘Pringa’ during the Kirat period who ruled Nepal from 7th century BC to 2nd century AD. Settlements were developed on non-irrigable higher lands called ‘Tar’ and irrigable slopes called ‘dole‘ and fertile plains along river banks called ‘ tala’ were reserved for agriculture (Tiwari,1999).

From 3rd century on, Lichhavi dynasty ruled the country, which is believed to be the era of city establishment (Pursha, 1969).During this period the setting of Gramas (villages) gradually moved to the Tar (less irrigated land along Ridges) of the valley to secure the fertile agricultural land for growing crops and also to avoid more risks of flooding to the settlement itself (Hosken, 1974). To tackle with the low ground water table, indigenous water supply system in the form of sunken water spouts, ponds and wells supplied by rainwater and brick canals were also developed during this Period.

The city further flourished in terms of art, culture, architecture and urban design during Malla regime after 12th century. Due to the competitive nature of rulers of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur in constructing temples, monuments and squares, architectural excellence developed in all three parts of the valley. Settlements grew in size to form larger compact towns which were built around Dyochen, house of Gods, within the settlement and their counterparts, pith, located on the outer periphery. These town boundaries were marked by locating Kyo, an open green space located in the perimeter of town, to maintain ecology and restrain town expansion by religious belief of pith as a nature protector. Town planning was based on the principle of Astamatrika, perimeter goddess, and Mandala, strict geometric pattern. As per this principle, eight mother goddess were placed on eight corners which signified the town limits, city expansion beyond which was a taboo. (Tiwari 1999, 2007) Traditionally, sustainable development practice maintained an ecological balance of urban development through physical features, cultural practice and sustainable economic development opportunities (Adhikari, 2012: IUCN, 1999; Manandhar; Parajuli, 2015). Such features of town planning are still appreciated through intangible cultural heritage. The concept of Vastu Purusha Mandala evidently explained how and where to settle in hazard prone area (Gutschow, 1977). The compact settlement were situated on higher ground leaving lower fertile land for cultivation (Hosken, 1974).

Agriculture formed primary occupational base that secured cultivable land and also enabled inhabitant to remain self-sustained in food products during the event of disaster (Bhandari & Okada, 2009). In-order to mobilize the society during

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agriculturally lean seasons festivals were allocated at those periods. The planning of the Malla towns was guided by two factors: the movement of the gods as the people perceived it and the daily activities of the people. The god in the Malla period were supposed to be residing somewhere and supposed to be moving about in chariots and sometimes on human shoulders during specific festivals following specific Jatra route.

Besides, the strategic location of settlement on higher lands minimises the risk of flooding (Gutschow, 2011) and thereby forms a compact nuclei (Gutschow, 1977). It was further buffered naturally by fields, forests and rivers. Settlements were compacted around open spaces (Shaw, Srinivas & Anshu, 2009) of different size, scale and geometry exists in the form of closed courtyards (Bahal/Bahil), neighbourhood square (Nani/Chowk), palace square and bigger open space at the town periphery (Sharma, 2013). However there were no concept of garden or green space within the settlement.

These old settlements in the core areas of the valley are complex, have compact composition of mass and void connected through a unique maze of interconnected courtyards through underpass alleys and non-axial streets (Gutschow, 2011). Some of these buildings are connected at attic level which are opened during feasts (Pant, 2002) which promotes social cohesion.

1.2.3 Development Dynamics and consequent vulnerability The architecture and settlements in Nepal have responded quite well to earthquakes of varying magnitude through the use of its indigenous technology and flexible building materials (Tiwari, 1988) in the past. Traditional houses were made of brick, mud and timber with rational thoughts to withstand earthquake. Kathmandu was exposed to western building technologies and globalisation 160 years ago, during Rana regime when architecture became highly influenced by European Neo-classic style (Ranjitkar, 2006). Before few decades, modernisation, had only affected top upper class society which amplified the possibility of rethinking its priorities, goals and even changing its direction (Hosken). However, today unplanned transformation and use of cheap modern materials have gained popularity among middle and lower class city inhabitants as well. Thus the traditional character of the buildings and neighbourhood is slowly transforming. Western styles and use of foreign construction material and technology are profoundly being imitated without knowing its discipline. Taking engineer’s and architect’s consultation is still far-fetched choice for economically constrained middle class city dwellers who prefer to give the responsibility to contractor, often ill-informed to these foreign technology. The main structural system continues to be load bearing while extensions adopts modern materials such as cement, concrete and reinforcement, giving rise to an adobe vulnerable structure. However, use of cement replaced mud mortar, metal sections substituted timber, sheet metal took over traditional roof tiles and plastering and pointing became common practice in well to do families.

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This trend further amplified during first democratic movement in Nepal (1960-1990).

Frame structure started replacing load bearing system. The preference of new material and construction technology is also because of the wrong assumption that they are more stable compared to local material and traditional technology. Conversely, recent research have highlighted the vulnerability of such materials and building practices with the potential for significant damage during the event of earthquake (Lagenbach, 1989, Jigyasu, 2002, Marahatta, 2008). Such use of non-local material without proper consent and under the shade of poor construction supervision has given rise to a vulnerable situation. These materials on one hand becomes cause of injury and mortality, while on other hand have no scope of reuse in post disaster scenario. To its contrary, traditional vernacular buildings are the example in itself of constructing an earthquake resistant building. Sadly, masonry construction often receives negative reviews in the aftermath of earthquake, and emphasis is seldom given to its strength or its further enhancement (Langenbach 2000).

Beside architecture, urban core as a whole has undergone many transformations over the years that adds to its vulnerability aspects. The previously homogeneous social composition of the core has been altered to become more heterogeneous. It has become a mixture of people from different cultural and social background who have migrated to the centre due to its numerous pull factors. Rich aboriginals have left the core areas to poor and working class floating migrants in the form of new renters. These new majority have less understanding and attachment of traditional cultural practices and cultural heritages (Pradhan D., 2011). Similarly, courtyards are encroached by modern commodities. Buildings have been vertically fragmented in course of being inherited from father to different sons and so on. As a result the plot size has reduced and vertical expansion on the same foundation are practiced. Construction material as well as technology is adobe reflecting subsequent addition and alteration from generation to generation. Addition of new floors and extension of projections to traditional buildings without considering the byelaws and building code have further led to a risky scenario.

On one hand the building themselves lack light and ventilation. On the other streets and adjacent open spaces are also deprived of light and air flow leading to more probability of causalities and injuries during an event of earthquake (Shrestha B.K., 2011; Bajracharya B.N., 2013).

1.3 Statement of the Problem After the incidence of twin earthquake of 7.8 M and 7.3 M on 2015 and several aftershocks, the culturally, aesthetically and architecturally rich Kathmandu valley not only halted on its development strides but suffered a big setback that pushed the valley to rubbles. While the destructed buildings left many homeless and forced to live in privation in temporary shelters, a bigger concern lies on damaged buildings which are on verge of collapse, but somehow are still standing intact. These vulnerable structures are posing risk not only to the residents, who are compelled to live there but also to the

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whole community and passer-by. On top of it, due to the complexity of traditional neighbourhood physical composition, demolition as well as reconstruction is a tough task to proceed at individual level.

On top of this, the reconstruction of housing at individual level is further complicated by the multiple ownership issues and their construction on inherent fragmented plots.

The traditional culture of dividing fixed assets such as land and house among sons while inheriting from father and forefathers have created such a scenario over the period that a single residences now are standing on very small plots. We can also find examples of houses being divided vertically as well as horizontally with a single bay of window in one person’s name while adjacent to another person. Such cases are common in the core settlement. Further the economic constraint and complex building bylaws is making the disaster created scenario stagnant to reconstruction. This pose a risk of leaving these vulnerable building as it is, till its strength is tested by another quake, with a higher risk of damage of life and properties.

On one hand the government is overburdened with the responsibility of 31 disasterstruck districts and 14 critically hit districts for reconstruction. On the other, affected groups are relying on initiation from government in the form of technical help or aid for reconstruction of their housing. Government has many sectors to consider for reconstruction such as cultural heritage, education, government building, health, nutrition, rural and urban housing, agriculture, livestock development and irrigation, tourism, electricity and renewable energy, transport, water supply, disaster risk reduction, employment and livelihood, environment and forestry, gender social inclusion, governance, and social protection, etc. (PDFR, 2016-2020).

Though reconstruction procedure has made its few initial steps in the form of 3PERM (Public Private Partnership Earthquake Reconstruction Model), community regeneration projects, agency approached collaborative housing reconstruction and urban regeneration action plans, focus has been on individual housing reconstruction rather than looking up at the settlement scale. The big catchall phrase ‘Build back better’ highly used by government and involved actors in the process has just been a malleable term that has not been incorporated well to improve the physical, economic and social conditions beyond its pre-disaster state or turn the situation as an opportunity to its holistic development. Further the traditional settlement character in spite of its disaster responsive characteristic features and local vernacular construction technology are happily forfeited in an attempt to create a facilitated ancient looking modern settlements. Thus it is very much crucial for the capital city, at the moment when the country is still struggling in its dilemmatic situation of post disaster reconstruction, to rethink its redevelopment strategies and learn from the different local practices and international experiences while moving forward to creating a ‘sustainable, resilient and planned’ settlement as aimed in its reconstruction framework .

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1.4 Rationale of proposed research Numerous studies have been previously conducted in the field of post disaster recovery, reconstruction, and resilience by authors such as, Vale (2005,2014), Campanella (2005), Jigyasu (2008), Kennedy (2009), Jabeen, Johnson, Allen (2010), Mercer, Kelman, Taranis, Suchet (2010), Amoratung, Haigh (2011), Aldrich (2012), Crowley, Elliott (2012), Lauer(2012), Knox, Campbell(2012,2016), Lorez (2013), Blaike, Cannon, Davis, Wisner (2014), Zetter, Boano (2014), Wamsler (2014), Lizarralde, Johnson, Davidson (2007), Mannakkera (2015), Wilkson (2015), Alcayana, Murani (2016), Kapucu (2016), Vigana, Butterworth( 2016), Daly, Feener (2016), etc. Similarly researchers such as, Tiwari, Korn, Lagenbach, Marahatta, Pokharel (2008), Shrestha (2011), Bhandari, Okada, Knottnerus (2011), Bajracharya (2013), etc. have frequently argued on the disaster resilient characteristics of the traditional settlement planning of Kathmandu valley and also the physical resilience of indigenous construction technology and social resilience practiced through intangible cultural heritages. After the earthquake, more research have been done on the disaster preparedness and reconstruction suggestions by authors such as, Manandhar, Parajuli (2015), Singh (2015), Bhattarai (2016), D’Auria, De Meulder, Dens (2016), etc.

However there are still some gaps in the literature in regard to how social resilience, which is believed to be embedded within the socio-cultural foundation of Newari settlement, have emerged following the aftermath of disaster. Similarly the impact of such resilience in the physio-spatial feature of settlement still needs to be investigated.

Also it is yet a new topic to explore how government and international actors, through their policies and approaches, have fostered or hindered these attempts and in what ways. The third and the last dimension that the existing literatures haven’t yet been able to cover is, whether these grassroots approaches assure the re-establishment of the traditional characteristics of urban built fabric or where the reconstruction opportunity will be grasped as a chance to rebuild in a modernised way to fulfil the emerging urban needs. Since the impact of earthquake is still fresh and Nepal is still struggling in its reconstruction phase, an in depth study that would explore different dimensions of reconstruction in a more integrative way is relevant.

This thesis explores the characteristics of the traditional urban core of Kathmandu in terms of its earthquake responsiveness and social resilience and its present day relevance. With the help of three case studies of emerging reconstruction models in core area of Lalitpur, Bhaktapur and Kathmandu, the paper examines the level of social resilience, role of government, source of finance and complications and impacts in a more integrative way. Further, existing policies and bylaws are reviewed at a macro level to analyse how they have been fostering or hindering the resilient reconstruction process. At the end, based on comparative critical analysis of local cases, literature review of successful international cases, and theories relevant inclusive technique

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suitable for the traditional urban core of Kathmandu valley have been suggested along with some policy level recommendations.

1.5 Research problem Research Hypothesis: Traditional urban core of Kathmandu valley are physical designed considering sustainable and disaster responsive features and are socio-culturally shaped by religious practices that promote collaborated community participation. These physiocultural aspects form good foundation for grassroots initiatives and collaborative reconstruction approach following disasters like earthquake. With proper support from government bodies and donor agencies for legislative and financial support, such bottom up approaches can transcend towards a development trajectory that leads to physical as well as social resilience against any susceptible future hazards.

Research Question: The research aims at answering the following questions:   

To what extent has social resilience, built upon the traditional socio-cultural practices of traditional Newari settlement of Kathmandu, emerged after the earthquake?

How is such resilience responding to the traditional spatial features of these settlements?

What are the challenges that is hindering the social resilience and what has the government and other aid organisations done so far to foster such attempts with an eye towards addressing local chronic vulnerabilities?

1.6 Scope and Limitation of the Study The main argument of this research is that traditional settlements are built upon cultural and religious practices that builds solidarity, community participation and collaborative efforts which are the basic foundation of social resilience. On one hand the study explores how such endogenous forces within the community foster resilience after the event of disaster while simultaneously it also explores negative forces within these traditionally setup communities that create challenges in the collaborative attempts to reconstruct the settlement for betterment. Another dimension that is investigated is towards which direction such resilience forwards the physical, cultural, social and economic aspects of the settlement that has been traditionally appreciated by many researchers as disaster responsive and resilient both in terms of planning as well as architecture. This research investigates the challenges and opportunities encountered during the process of reconstruction and explores various endogenous and exogenous factors in various communities that have fostered and hindered heterogeneous social resilience manifestations. However, the research is limited to the 10

selected case study area and the specific community of that area only. Though, it mentions social resilience in emergency response and temporary reconstruction to build its argument, the main focus of the research is a permanent settlement reconstruction. It refrains from reconstruction of cultural monuments, reconstruction in rural areas or new settlements in the valley and other numerous issues related to the post-earthquake reconstruction.

1.7 Outcomes of Research Based on the analysis of three cases situated on the traditional settlements within the core area of Kathmandu valley, this research has been able to identify the challenges in terms of physio-spatial, legislative, political, socio-cultural and socio-economic aspects.

Similarly, this research takes into consideration the different endogenous and exogenous forces that have fostered and/or hindered the post-earthquake various forms of social resilience. On this ground, recommendations are proposed to further enhance the social resilience and also to achieve holistic development of the settlement on the basis of analysis of outcomes of such social resilience.

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Chapter 2. Approach and methods

Figure 6 Methodology Framework

Source: Author

2.1 Research Paradigm: This research is a qualitative approach to explore and understand how traditional communities of Kathmandu Valley have been trying to demonstrate resilience after the strike of 2015 earthquake in Nepal. According to Creswell, qualitative research starts with assumptions based on theoretical lens and studies research problem by collecting data based on the study of social and human problems. He suggests grounded theory or case study research as common forms of solving qualitative inquiry (Creswell, 2007).

Being born and brought up in a traditional setting of Kathmandu valley and belonging to a Newari community (the same community that I am now investigating), I had an initial assumption that these Newari communities who are rich in cultural and religious traditions have embedded seeds of resilience that are frequently watered by the practice of processions and festivities have resilient tendency at a community level.

With this hypothesis I adopted grounded theory and case study research to answer my qualitative inquiry of how social resilience emerged after the incidence of earthquake, what hurdles and encouragement it encountered in the process and how it shaped the spatial features of traditional settlement which are intertwined with the socio-cultural and economic aspect of the community.

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2.2 Research Strategies: Creswell emphasis that the process of qualitative research needs to stream from ‘philosophical assumption’ to ‘worldview’ of social problems based upon ‘theoretical lens’ (Creswell, 2007). In this research, I have tried to incorporate transformative worldview that focuses on needs of these communities and how resilience is catering to these aspirations.

Three things being highlighted in Creswell’s discourse, the presumed hypothesis needed a theoretical insight for which literature review was adopted and for the understanding of the real problems qualitative case study strategy was embraced.

2.2.1 Literature Review: Though Creswell suggests sparse use of literature in qualitative research to convey to convey an inductive design (Creswell, 2014), I needed to develop theoretical lens to design my inquiry. In order to know about ongoing dialogue in the literature and to know the different level meaning of the term resilience the initial study was of the planning and environment change Journals and publications on disaster studies. The key notions such disaster, vulnerability, resilience, social resilience and urban resilience was explored. This helped me find the knowledge gap and finalize the research problem.

This is then succeeded by further literature studies on Post earthquake reconstruction strategies, reconstruction process and role of actors and approaches (Top down and Bottom up). Due to limitation of time in field visit some literatures in the form of journals, articles and chapters of books were reviewed to know the traditional urban form of Kathmandu know about the concept as well as the context with focus on its historic evolution, sustainable characteristics, resilient features, disaster preparedness and responsiveness and finally its current transformation. These are included in the literature review chapter following this chapter. As the research question revolves around post disaster scenario and social resilience within traditional settlement of Kathmandu valley, the afore-mentioned strands of literature helped ME to develop my theoretical framework that clarifies the concept of social resilience and provides a better understanding of the specific context of Kathmandu Valley in which social resilience has variously manifested itself. Further literatures were referred at the later stage of research to compare and contrast the findings.

2.2.2 Case study Approach Literature suggests that in case study approach ‘in-depth analysis of a case, often a program, event, activity, process, or one or more individuals’ is developed within the boundary set by time and activity that limits the variety of data( Stake, 1995; Yin, 2009,2012). In this research three primary case studies of the emerging reconstruction practices in various locations within core areas of Kathmandu valley have been investigated. These cases are all situated in the traditional urban context and have adopted different tactics and strategies for reconstruction within bottom up approach.

These cases offered variety in terms of the endogenous and exogenous factors fostering 13

and hindering social resilience manifestations that I was investigating. Thus, due to contextual relevance and diversity of methods as well as analysis of its ‘tailor fit’ necessity, following cases were selected: Case 1. Pilachhen Redevelopment Project, Lalitpur: In this neighbourhood 82 households out of 110 households were damaged beyond repair following the disaster of 2015. A possible social resilience manifestation is the fact that the Jyapu community under the headship of community leader, started a joint venture with Maya Foundation (NGO) to rebuild their houses through volunteering and joint efforts. It has received technical assistance from CE Constructions and financial aid from various donors but has no government involvement in its implementation. It foresee destruction by earthquake as an opportunity to build the neighbourhood with better resilience, traditional architectural reflection and in an economically sustainable way through tourism based mixed uses.

Case 2. Tekhacho Tole Housing Reconstruction Project, Bhaktapur The case of Tekhacho is situated in a poor Newari neighbourhood of Bhaktapur where 35 household who are economically incapable of reconstructing are striving to get financial support for rebuilding their habitats. So far J-RAPID Nepal (NGO) has completed the survey, analysis and proposed 3 different options for its reconstruction.

However, the project is at the moment halted due to financial issues and confusion among the community members.

Case 3. Kilagal Pilot House pooling Project- Dambo Chok, Kathmandu After most of the houses in Kilagal were immensely damaged following 7.8 M earthquake, 54 houses presented a joint application for land acquisition to Kathmandu Valley Development Authority for urban regeneration. A proposal was prepared jointly

by Kathmandu Metropolitan city and National society for Earthquake Technology (NSET) based on which the reconstruction is intended to complete within 2.5 years. The plans intends to regenerate the neighbourhood in course of reconstruction by disregarding the existing architectural feature, footprints and volume and replace it with a single mixed use block that would consolidate the fragmented open space, promotes economic activities in lower floors and reserve upper floors for residential use of its original inhabitants.

2.3 Methods of data Collection Denzin & Lincon (2009) explains that in qualitative research the researchers locate themselves in a natural setting that they are investigating and try to interpret phenomenon by the way people brings to them. This is obtained by field notes, interviews, conversations, photographs and recordings. Creswell accentuates the need of data collection in qualitative inquiry to be ‘in a natural setting sensitive to people and

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place under study’ (Creswell, 2007).He also emphasises the role of researcher as a key instrument in data collection and importance of having multiple sources of data. Based on these understanding of qualitative data collection following methods were adopted in this research. My knowledge of local language, extended linkages with sources, and some basic understanding of the cultural, political, economic and social aspects of the study area became an asset in collecting data at this short duration of field visit.

2.3.1 Pre field visit desk research and data collection strategies This research uses primary as well as secondary sources for qualitative data. Prior to field visit which was focused on collection of primary data, the secondary sourced data were collected through desk research on government’s resilience following the disaster of 2015. Sufficient literatures were reviewed to build the clear understanding of the concept of resilience. Besides, online news publications as well as reports and information regarding the case studies were researched. Reports on previous study done on the case study area was also studied. Based on this, key informants were identified related to each of the specific projects and were contacted for relevant data including project reports, workshop reports and presentations. Further future base for face to face interaction and focused interviews are created through emails. Meanwhile semi structured questionnaires were prepared for each of the identified key informants based on the background information about the case, their involvement and possible information they might have on certain topics. Few questions were intentionally repeated to different stakeholders within the same case so as to cross examine information dissymmetry and difference in opinions.

2.3.2 On field visit data collection: Primary data were collected during the 3 week long field visit to Kathmandu, Nepal scheduled from 31st March 2017 to 19th April 2017. The field visit had following objectives that is develop understanding of the site and context, analyse resilience by the community in terms of its initiation, hurdles, how with whose help did they overcame these hindrance and its status. As there were three cases that were intended to be studied, the site visit was conducted with equal focus on each. My knowledge of the local language and cultural background was proven as an asset through which I could relate to the informants and extract deeper insight. a. Qualitative Observation: During the site visit, on site data were collected using emergent observations though with some pre figured focus were also identified. Physical environment were inspected to understand the economic status of its inhabitant and spatial usage in their daily life were considered. Written descriptions were made in the form of short notes.

Photographs and videography were made as qualitative visual graphics for supporting observation. The opportunity were also seized for interacting with the locals of that particular neighbourhood in course of which their actual needs, aspiration and involvement in the social resilience were explored. Side by side their behaviour and non-verbal reactions were also observed to develop a holistic view.

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b. Qualitative Interviews As the research prioritises qualitative data rather than quantifiable data key informants were the main source of data. Series of semi structured interviews with open ended questions were conducted with the pre identified key informants. Informal settings were created in spite of formal venue to extract in depth insights by making the interviewee feel as a part of conversation rather than interview. The primary focus was on their perspective and subjective views. Follow up regarding the information dissymmetry were done through telephonic conversation and emails. Skype interview was also conducted with key informant who was not present in the valley during this visit. c. Participation: Maps and other unpublished secondary data were collected during office visit. Similarly in order to get update about the updated legislations and resilience, Housing Summit 2017 – Nepal with building resilient and inclusive communities was attended. Beside to understand the cultural aspect Biska Jatra of Bhaktapur was closely inspected through participation.

Following table describes the data their sources and method of collection: Table 1 Method of Data Collection

Type of source

Data

Source of Data

Method of Collection

Site Photographs/ Videos

Site Visit

Site observation, Photography, videography

Community Perspective

Madan Maharjan

Interaction with community

Project Initiation and community leading

Ramesh Maharjan

Technical Issues

Manish Maharjan, CE

Online Interview

Maya Foundation

Desk Research , online source, report

Site Visit

Site observation, Photography, videography

Case 1 : Pilachhen , Lalitpur Primary

Secondary Pilachhen conservation slides

(local)

Community Leader/ CEO Maya Foundation

Semi structured Interview

Case 2: Kilagal, Kathmandu Primary

Site Photographs/ Videos

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Local’s view

local

Interaction with community

Government’s Role

Dr, Uttar Raj Regmi

Semi structured Interview

Kathmandu Metropolitan City Technical Vision & Role

Surya Sangachhe

Community Perspective & Leadership

Macha Raja Maharjan

Secondary Kilagal Workshop Report

National Society for Earthquake Technology

Community Leader Surya Sangachhe (NSET)

Desk Research , online source, report

Case 3 : Kaminani, Tekhacho, Bhaktapur Primary

Site Photographs/ Videos

Site Visit

Site observation, Photography, videography

Community leader’s Perspective

Krishna Suwal

Interaction with community

Planner’s experience

Ram Shrestha

Secondary Kaminani Survey Report

Community Leader

Planner J-Rapid Ram Shrestha Planner J-Rapid

Semi structured Interview Desk Research , online source, report

The above listed sources were used because of their active involvement in the neighbourhood reconstruction either as a driving force of the community, as a technical or financial aid provider or as a government body responsible for the particular matter.

2.4 Methods of Data Processing and Analysis Creswell (2007) insists that the data analysis in qualitative research needs to be ‘inductive’ and ‘establish patterns of themes’. He suggests to review data collected from multiple sources and organise them in categories, patterns and themes developed from ‘bottom up’ that links all the data sources and make sense in totality. For the analysis of spatial data, the relevant photographs were cautiously selected among hundreds that

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were clicked during site visit. The base maps were reworked on with the updated information received from observation. Photographs were also categorised and given captions to put it in themes.

The processing of qualitative data obtained as an outcome of several focused interviews, took in consideration hybrid approach of content analysis and grounded analysis was adopted in which data were categorised based on preconceived themes but new themes that emerged from the conversation was also incorporated. Trend analysis of the lifestyle and built forms were done based on historic study and current observation. In order to organise and interpret the information collected, raw data needed examining, categorising, tabulating and recording. Following process were followed for this:

2.4.1 Coding & Categorising: a. Open Coding: The first step towards organisation of data was by listing all the verbal as well as behavioural data for classification and summarisation. These were sorted as per categories. As multiple informants were interviewed for each case, these information were first categorised based on the cases. b. Axial Coding: The following step towards coding was by interconnecting various categories. Data were further categorised as problems and issues of study area, endogenous and exogenous forces fostering resilience, endogenous hindrances, challenges and spatial impact of resilience. c. Selective Coding: Information was then carefully sequenced to understand the overall process of social resilience by sequencing the categories in order to understand the complete sense.

2.4.2 Identification of common themes and essence: As the research was designed to be emergent, back and forth between various themes and database was necessary. Critical analysis of each case was done based on findings on observation and interview outcomes by identifying the common these and essence.

Finally inferences were drawn along with recommendation for smooth execution and better results based on relevance of literature to the context.

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Chapter 3. Literature Review This chapter forms a foundation for conceptual framework by clarifying key notions in relation to existing state of art. Vulnerability and resilience are described as two interdependent aspects of disaster which is the consequence of human action in an event of hazard. Various definitions of resilience focusing on the process and outcome of resilience suggests that it occurs at different levels. It is the ability of a system to positively react to a disrupted situation for bouncing forward depending on its sensitivity. Reconstruction strategies and approaches are both contextual and needs to be tailor fit. The strategies though categorised as pre and post disaster, the later also includes the previous in a situation where disasters are periodic and repetitive.

Various stake holders are involved in reconstruction process such as government, local authority, international funding agencies, NGOs, community, etc. Proper collaboration is essential among these. Local actors should be given the central role of designing and planning while international actors should play supporting role. Similarly, the process itself can be either top down, initiated by high level and highly centralised or bottom up, with grassroots initiative. Whether it is a top down or a bottom up community participation can transpire at different scale. While the preceding process is more organised their success and sustainability of the final product depends upon how and to what extent community involvement is entertained. The successor, though time consuming assures effectiveness, contextualise, socio-cultural reflection, use of indigenous knowledge and materials and long term sustainability.

3.1 Disaster, Vulnerability and Resilience Disaster is a consequence of naturally occurring events called hazard and various human actions that affects the vulnerability to that particular hazard at given spacetime parameter (Oliver-Smith 1996; Hewitt 1997; Blaike et al. 2014). Kelman (2003) suggests that the impact of disaster is controllable in the sense that the loss of life and properties are preventable. While hazards often comes to a lime light after the impact of disaster is observed, the more crucial factor determining the damage or loss is the associated vulnerabilities. Alexander (2000) defines vulnerability as tendency for ‘casualty, destruction, damage, disruption or other form of loss in a particular element’.

It is associated with social, political and economic environment within which people shapes their lives such as class, occupation, caste, ethnicity, gender, disability and health status, age, immigration status , nature and extent of social networks. These vulnerabilities forms vulnerable or special need groups in the society who are not only immensely affected by the consequences of disaster but also have hard time reconstructing their livelihood back to normality after the event. Such inability to be resilient is distinct in poor communities subjected to involuntary risks that rich

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counterparts who are secured with insurance, reserves. This has been time and again proven by the extent of damage which is more prominent in poor countries that lacks financial ability to cope with the situation or be resilient (Kahn, 2005). According to Buckle (2006), vulnerability is one key concept of disaster while the other is resilience.

Sapountzaki argues that, resilience is a mechanism of transference, transformation, redistributions and reallocations of vulnerability rather than vulnerability abating factor. She insists that when an agent attempts to recover or avoid risk in the city, there is high probability that vulnerability of other agents increase either simultaneously or in future. It is in fact only a counter action to vulnerability but not a remedy.

Vulnerability and resilience are co-existing phenomenon that reproduces one another in an urban system. Thus presence of resilient citizens does not always assure non vulnerable urban community as they may rather produce vulnerable physical structures that would rather cast collective vulnerability. The concept of “resilient city” is a utopia as resilience and vulnerability are coexisting and reproducing one another (Sapountzaki, 2014).

3.2 Resilience, social resilience and urban resilience: Resilience is a multi-disciplinary theme pursued by different subject areas including psychology, ecology, geography, engineering, business management, social science and urban planning. As a concept, it was originated from medical science (Pfeiffer, 1929) and was wildly spread by psychology (Werner, 1971). Different scholars such as Holing, Lorenz, Carpenter, Wilavsky, Barton, Douglas, Folke, Adger and many more have explained their notion with reference to their own disciplines in following ways: Table 2 Various definition of Resilience Author

Definition

Lorenz, 2013

A system property to absorb the instability in its balanced state during the event of disaster

Holing & Gunderson 2002

Ability of a system to resist external influences and return to a well-defined state of equilibrium;-‘bounce back’

Vale, 2014

A theory that embrace the need for physical bounce back, socio- economic networking and psychological recovery’ and thereby incorporate the’ insights and approach from engineers, ecologist, economist and psychologists

While the definition of resilience proposed by Lorenz only talks about the adaptive property of a system impacted by external stress, resilience is not just limited to this.

Similarly the understanding of the term by Holing and Gunderson as a coping behaviour and reflex action taken to recoil back to the initial status also does not consider other aspects such as social, cultural, economic and human nature which are equally considerable in this process. Vale though takes the definition further by incorporating socio-economic aspect and psychological recovery that indicates resilience not just in 20

terms of the product but also a process, however it lacks the main notion of following the process for the betterment. Building upon the previous discourse, following provisional working definition has been proposed for this research: Resilience is a property of a system to resist, absorb and cope with any form of external stress causing disruption and instability in its otherwise balanced state and to reach a state which is better than its previous condition by forming an interconnection between environmental forces and social institution to embraces holistic idea of regaining strength through dynamic change.

Resilience is understood as a process as well as a product. As a process it should form interconnection between environmental forces and social institution while as a product it must be able to physically withstand the impact of disaster and socially able to cope with the situation assuring speedy recovery in case of occurrence of another strike. It is indeed a multidimensional notion that can be most fruitful, if it embraces holistic idea of regaining strength through dynamic change that a disruptive situation may demand in course of readjusting to a stable situation.

Table 3 Various definition of social resilience Author

Definition

Adger, 2000

Ability of groups or communities to cope with external stresses and disturbances of any magnitude, appeared as a result of social, political, and environmental change, and swift with modification of internal system if required

Cacioppo, 2011

Multilevel phenomenon that includes collective resources and capacities e.g., group identity, centrality, cohesiveness, tolerance, openness, rules for governance for managing post disaster issues as well as acknowledging the uncertainty through preventive and mitigating measures

Wildavsky

Coping with unanticipated hazard through positive attitude towards failure

Resilience occurs at different levels such as individual, household, community, regional, national and even global.(IFRC,2014) When translated to a social context, resilience becomes the ability of the community as a whole to cope with unforeseen hazard, as a result of social, political, and environmental change, by pooling resources as well as capacities with a positive attitude towards failure. In order to demonstrate this, a deep understanding of the non-disastrous change that instigated the disastrous change is required (Clausen et al. 1978). A social resilience approach has three components, namely: adaptive capacity, coping capacity, participative capacity. Capacity is the ability of a group or household to resist a hazards harmful effects and to recover easily. The adaptive capacity deals with the ability to reflect on change driven learning process that can be implemented in the future. (Carpenter et al. 2001). Coping is the manner in which people act within the limit of existing resources and range of expectation to face adverse consequences that lead to a disaster (UNISDR 2009). To Folke, it is a short term adaptive response in a stressed social system. Participative capacity is a unique property of social system which depends upon the pre-existing cohesion of social entity, celebrations of

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festivals, grief rituals and unification (Folke, 2006). Thus, it depends on social interaction, its cultural and political character and capacity based on its financial and skill based resource. While these definitions of social resilience is based on the assumption that community is homogeneous, this research perceives community as: Community is complex heterogeneous group of people associated by kinship, ethnicity or geographical region bonded by similar cultural values and norms developed over the period of time. They are exposed to the risks of earthquake and who shares the common goal of rebuilding their neighbourhood after the impact of earthquake. At the same time communities are heterogeneous mix of people with diverse human nature with different needs and resources, diverse economic and educational background, are impacted by earthquake in different scale and have dissimilar outside links that makes influence their resilience.

When applied to a built environment on a city level, the term is referred as urban resilience. From disaster perspective, Campanella defines it as “the capacity of a city to rebound from destruction” (Campanella, 2006). The ‘rebound’ phenomenon is elaborated by Vale by its need to be ‘holistic’ and ‘assuring wellbeing of its physical, socio economical and full range of urban stakeholder’. His emphasis the pre understanding of questions such as: Who counts as a city? What aspects are considered?

Whom is this for? What are the intentions and what are the mechanism? His definition of resilience sees disaster as unanticipated change due to certain hazard or a gradual transformation in the form of decentralization, urbanisation or urban shrinkage. Thus he propose two modes of operation of resilience that is proactive or preventive resilience and reactive or restorative resilience that needs to consider technical process, socio-economic system and human behaviour (Vale, 2014 et. al.). Wamsler adds to this notion my arguing that a city can be considered resilient if it has managed to reduce or avoid current and future susceptibility to hazards and established functioning mechanisms and structures for disaster response and recovery (Wamsler et al., 2013).

As per research, resilient cities demonstrate seven qualities: reflectiveness, resourcefulness, robustness, redundancy, flexibility, inclusiveness and integration (100 Resilient Cities). Reflecting upon these discourse and situating in a post-earthquake scenario, this thesis understands urban social resilience as: Urban social resilience is the combined ability of the settlement and its inhabitant to restoring the extent of damage in terms of its physicality and proper functioning of its socio-economic, cultural and everyday way of life in a holistic and improved manner such that the future prospect of the hazard is substantially reduced. It is the ability of community to rise above their individualistic benefits, to cope with unforeseen hazard by utilising the participative capacity, collaborated approach, pooling resources to perceive disaster in a positive way by bounce forward through solidarity, altruism and mutual aids for the betterment of the society.

Based on this definition, manifestation of social resilience and its spatial impacts is investigated in three case studies in the frame of post disaster reconstruction efforts.

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3.3 Resilience as a critical guiding concept for reconstruction Resilience occurs at an intersection of vulnerability, adaptive capacity and sensitivity (Gallopin, 2006). After an occurrence of a disaster, there are four possible ways to cope with the situation. It can either stay the same, degrade than its previous condition, recoil back to its original situation or bounce back better to an improved situation. These primarily depend on the sensitivity of the community and their perception of reconstruction. Yan Gao (2012) argues that resilience is a critical concept that guides urban reconstruction in a disaster struck territory with its reflection on pre disaster vulnerabilities. Post disaster reconstruction is a challenging task that a city, including all its stakeholders such as government, affected community and helping organisations, are entitled to in an aftermath of hazard. In a situation , like Nepal, where disaster such as earthquake is a periodic phenomenon, it is essential to adopt strategies which are not only limited to post event coping but includes preventive as well as mitigating schemes under consideration.

According to Jabeen, Johnson, Allen (2010), pre-disaster strategies could be preventive approaches reflected at grassroots level in the form of choices made for avoiding dangerous location or reconstruction focussed on developing preparedness to prevent or minimize the possible damage and facilitate easy recovery in case of loss . At a micro scale, this could be reflected in the preference made for material selection, building technology or socio-economic back up in the form of savings or formation of cooperative organisation. While at city scale, this could be in the form of risk sensitive land use map, evacuation plan for city, identification of refuge open spaces, national building code and construction guidelines, etc. These strategies focusses on disaster preparedness, vulnerability reduction and sustainable development. Besides, collective saving, diversifying incomes, development of social support networks, and modification of physical and built environment are also some of the coping strategies (Wisner, 2004; Wamsler, 2007). Such strategies demonstrates sensitivity of community towards resilience.

On the other hand, post disaster recovery strategies are often contextual and depends on the nature of disaster such as scale of destruction, human tolls, area of impact, presumed cause, political will, etc. After the introduction of the new catchall phrase: ‘Build back better’, following 2004 Indian Tsunami(Clinton, 2006), the perception of reconstruction has been transformed to a more forward seeking notion of grasping the so created scenario as an opportunity to holistically improve the pre-disaster state in a more effective and efficient manner. It anticipates reconstruction effort towards sustainable and resilient development by addressing planning issues, improved physical development, and structural design, public with future disaster in consent and past experience as inference to reduce the risk of disaster. It can also be understood as a synonym of Shaw’s positive translation of ‘bouncing back’ to ‘bouncing forward’ which offers possibility for a non-regressive evolution to a new state through awareness,

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institutional capacity and adopting new technology. (Acharya, 2016; Lamond et al.2013). They are focused on re-establishing normalcy in affected community, reconstructing the damaged infrastructure and built structures and redeveloping in a way to mitigate the past mistakes.

These strategies manoeuvre within different scales ranging from individual, community to institutional. At individual level these strategies could be in the form of household improvement, insurance or savings. Whereas, operating in community level involves social resilience of the neighbourhood either through community based organisation or some other form of religious or social organisations. At a city or wider arena, local government and NGOs functions at institution level. Some of the most operative strategies could be beyond the community level and requires institutional implementation while some could be effective through grassroots as well.

3.4 Reconstruction as a collaborative approach: Disaster often hits economically deprived group harder due to their greater tolerance for vulnerability and consequent exposure to the risks. After an occurrence of disaster, communities are often brought to the same level which develops the social cohesion, community cooperation and spontaneous volunteerism (Acharya, 2015).

Reconstruction is a shared responsibility of the affected community, the government, the national and international non-governmental organisations and donor agencies.

Though the overall goal to recover and reconstruct a city may remain the same, the process may vary based on the initiation and emphasis given to the key actors. A topdown approach is instigated from the higher level of governance. It is often regarded as an ambitious approach which is well thought of and planned following sequence of activities. A rigid top-down approach disregards community consultation and involvement of community in planning and execution (Andrew et al., 2013). As a result, their solutions are rather imposed and suffers lack of community acceptance. Besides, there are more case of its failure to deliver its promises (Fraser, 2006; Halani, 2004).

The bottom up approach on the other hand is believed to be participatory. It is initiated from the disaster struck community itself which assures the inclusiveness of the approach but does not always yield desired results (Halani, 2004).

Goldstein (2011) argues that it is important to have communication between different stakeholders in order to achieve social resilience. This notion of increasing the effectiveness of resilience through coordination and networking among different actors involved in the procedure is also supported by Coaffee, Wood and Rogers (2009). The success of reconstruction is hugely dependent on how different actors such as: government, local authority, NGOs, private development companies, lead disaster agency, international aid organisations, and agency involved in reconstruction and affected communities are involved in the process. After an occurrence of disaster, a country seeks and receives different forms of aids from its global associates. For an

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effective urban humanitarian response local actors and international actors should work hand in hand.

Alcayana and Murani argues that there should be proper collaboration between local actors and international actors guided through policy recommendations. Local Actors are those organisations or individuals based in disaster struck country or belongs to the affected area, who are working directly or indirectly with other actors in reconstruction process. These local partners have better understanding of the context and with the help of their conceptualised knowledge and cultural understanding, they can save a lot of time that an international actor would require to comprehend. International Actors, on the other hand plays vital role since they are the one that provides the funding necessary to execute the work. Because of this, they often dominate the strategic design and major decision making. They suggests that while international actors should play the support role, local actors should be allowed to make major decisions and should be empowered by direct funding. However, the skill and expertise of both the parties should be utilised to the utmost level. (Alcayana, Murani, 2016)

3.5 Grassroots Participation & Collaboration Recovery plans needs to be tailor fit rather than based on a general understanding, for this it requires community as a central character and their participation as a key tool.

While its extent is maximum in highly decentralised recovery efforts with major decision making roles, there are many ways of involving community in the process. The ladder of community participation by Arnstein (1969) and Choguill (1996) in developed and developing countries identifies two level of participation: Pseudo participation and Genuine Participation. In pseudo participation, control of project rests on administration while people listens to what is being planned for them. It is non participatory and involves either ‘informing, therapy and manipulation’ or placation and consultation. Genuine participation on the other hand promotes cooperation, partnership, delegation of power and empowerment through citizen control. White, Nair and Ascroft (1994) argued that it is important to have distinction between various form of participation by considering the communication behaviour in the process of participation to promote knowledge sharing and mutual learning. It has numerous benefits such as better maintained physical environment, greater public spirit, user satisfaction and financial saving. However it is contextual and differs in type, level of intensity, extent and frequency.

Community have better understanding of their own needs and can provide valuable insight into the local context. Such culture, aesthetics, ethnic facets of communities are crucial in both data collection as well as setting priorities. Recovery strategies and reconstruction policies based on these findings are successful at reflecting the local living pattern, context, culture and heritage. Thus assuring acceptance, ensures targeted achievement and long term sustainability. Such participatory approach has numerous benefits not just from physical reconstruction point of view but also from physiological 25

recovery perspective. Involving communities in reconstruction process helps to divert the focus from the traumatic experience of disaster on one hand while it integrates a sense of responsibility and ownership through owner building (Kennedy et. al.2008). It also helps to bring insight of the indigenous knowledge of construction material and technology which are sensible towards the local tradition and customs. Further, with proper training, supervision and advice from the technical experts the problematic aspect of owner building can also be minimised (Lloyd-Jones, 2006) and the technologies improvised, assuring good output by addressing people’s voice. Besides, communities are brought together for future resilience.

Though its importance is more crucial in the post disaster scenario, it is often neglected in highly centralised recovery efforts because of its time constrain. In course of delivering a fast solution to the affected area, the idea of involving the main beneficiary is often ignored and the real need of the community is superintended (Baradan, 2006; Silva, 2009).As a result, such solutions are often socially unacceptable, culturally impracticable and economically unaffordable. Besides, being drawn without the community consultation, they often fail to address the main issue of the community and their way of life (Waugh and Smith, 2006). The exclusion of affected community from reconstruction process often recreates the pre-existing vulnerabilities. Many examples of such solution have been there in the past in Sri Lanka after Indian Ocean Tsunami, where humanitarian agencies proposed bathrooms with half heighted walls which were culturally unacceptable.

Grassroots collaboration with government opens up avenue for governmentcommunity partnership. This strengthens the credibility towards government’s present and future actions and enhances accountability. Community consultation group can be established consisting of community leaders from pre-existing or reputed members of the society who would take the responsibility of liaising between community and government authorities. This will also simultaneously reduces potential frauds and corruption. However, community participation are not always straight forward because of the prevailing heterogeneity and differing priorities. Such differences may result in conflicts that hinders cohesive designing and planning process. Other possibilities are the confusion regarding the roles in such collaboration which consequently results in delay and uncertainty.

3.6 Conceptual Framework Thus earthquake is a sudden natural hazard that bears the risk of disaster on various physical and social aspects due to the associated vulnerabilities. However, it depends on the sensitivity of the people and their community to react to such disturbance in a different ways. With high resilience, one can bounce forward than its pre disaster condition. Such resilience can occur at different scale. At community scale, resilience depends upon adaptive, coping and participative capacity of the community which comes under the endogenous forces within the community. Similarly these endogenous 26

forces are collaborated with exogenous forces received from government and aid organisations for better resilience. Thus the urban social resilience is a combined ability of community in collaboration with exogenous forces to cope, participate and adapt with the unforeseen hazard to bounce to a situation that is physically, socio- culturally and economically better than the pre-existing scenario.

Figure 7 Conceptual Framework

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Chapter 4. Government’s Response to Recovery The following chapter explains what initiatives have been taken so far from the government side towards reconstruction. It explains how government has transmitted the responsibility of housing reconstruction back to the owner’s themselves through its owner driven reconstruction approach with subjected financial grants and promises of technical assistance. It also introduces the modification in byelaws that government did to assure physical robustness and enhancement of spatial characteristics of settlements.

The reflection of government’s encouragement towards community driven reconstruction is also mentioned though no other distinctive responses to social resilience manifestations could be found in their response.

4.1 Government’s Reconstruction and Recovery initiatives

Figure 8 Earthquake affected districts of Nepal

Source: PDNA Report

After the calamitous earthquake of 25thApril and 12th May 2015, the Government of Nepal primarily focused on emergency responses and temporary shelter provision on the disaster hit areas during early phase of post-earthquake scenario. National Planning Commission (NPC) in collaboration with the developing partners and other

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stakeholders including national experts and institutions prepared a living document in the form of Post Disaster Need Assessment (PDNA) in which 31 districts out of 75 districts of Nepal were found affected by the calamity and housing was identified as the most affected sector. In this assessment, damage and losses occurred in these affected district were estimated along with the identification of desirable and possible recovery needs, covering 23 thematic areas, within 4 broad sectors. The issue of housing was listed under Social sector. Out of the total estimated disaster value of US$7 billion, US$3505 (355,028 damages and 53,597 losses) were in housing and human settlement sector alone. Likewise, 56% of the total share of disaster effects were on social sector, out of which 86% was in housing sector. Similarly, summary of total need in housing sector was US$ 3278 49% of total need as per sectors. This flexible document formed a basis for mobilizing the funds launching immediate recovery plans. The study highlights the fact that damaged houses lacked seismic resistant features and were not in accordance with building codes.

On 20th December 2015, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Government of Nepal published Nepal Reconstruction act as an “Act Relating to Reconstruction of the Earthquake Affected Structures, 2015(2072)” under extraordinary issue 19(Section 65). This act defines reconstruction as “works relating to economic, social and physical development, new construction and reconstruction of the damage caused by the earthquake, in a sustainable, resilient and planned manner”. Nepal Reconstruction Authority was formed under the legislation of Nepal Reconstruction Act, 2072 on 25th December 2016, for period of 5 years to conduct damage assessment, planning and priority setting, coordinate implementation activities and set norms for quality, standard and mode of construction. Besides, it is also responsible for land acquisition, demolition of damage structure and clearing structures hampering reconstruction, coordination, implementation of reconstruction work and its supervision. Moreover, financing as well as capacity building of reconstruction also comes under its duty.

On the basis of PDNA, NRA prepared Post Disaster Recovery Framework (PDRF) 20162020 in consultation with stakeholders and with technical and financial assistance from UNDP and World Bank on May 2016. It provided a systematic, structured and prioritized framework for implementing post-earthquake recovery and reconstruction activities. The framework was meant to serve all of government, as well as national and international partners other recovery stakeholders, including the affected population.

This flexible document is intended to be reviewed, adapted and updated as demanded by circumstances in course of progressing towards achievement of targets, priorities and availability of additional resources. PDRF laid out recovery vision to creating “Well-planned, Resilient Settlements and a Prosperous society” through strategic objectives focused on safe structure, social cohesion, access to service livelihood support and capacity building. It summarizes in an integrated manner, the policy decisions, institutional arrangements, financing and financial management strategies, as well as implementation and monitoring systems that are being put in place to plan and manage recovery and reconstruction. It also sets out sector priorities that will 29

contribute to the achievement of the strategic recovery objectives. Project prioritisation is done by sectors within which housing is further classified as rural and urban housing. Housing recovery is given top priority. Herein, it is mentioned that, in order to restore and improve disaster resilient social and physical infrastructures, owners are subjected to manage their own reconstruction based on their own choices and mobilising their own resources. However they will be provided financial and technical assistance in the form of training and facilitation. Priority will be given to restoring urban heritage settlements, unsafe neighbourhoods and affected market towns by improving access to planning and building skills and local initiatives.

Furthermore, Community based organisation (CBO) will be made in every settlement to ensure community participation, ownership of reconstruction and recovery and enhancing social cohesion. Thus building resilient communities.

In this way, government followed a sequence of planned activities. However, the procedure took longer period due to administrative procedure, need of wider sectoral coverage and political reasons. Though depreciated by the affected community, this delay encouraged communities to take self-initiatives to rebuild the settlement through their own grassroots initiatives but within the framework set by the government.

4.2 Housing reconstruction approach: Rather than a opting for an imposed ambitious reconstruction process that often fails to deliver their promises ( Fraser, 2006; Halani, 2004), the Government of Nepal has proposed owner driven reconstruction approach as its housing recovery strategy. In this approach financial assistance as well as technical assistance is provided to the affected community. This is globally regarded as the most empowering and dignified approach among the five housing reconstruction approaches: Cash Approach, owner Driven Reconstruction, Community Driven Reconstruction, Agency Driven Reconstruction in –situ and Agency Driven Reconstruction in Relocated site (Safer Homes, Stronger Communities: A Handbook for Reconstructing After Natural Disaster).In the past this approach was adopted by the state government of Gujarat.

Besides it was also opted by Thailand following 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and by Sri Lanka after 2005 North Pakistan earthquake. Evaluation conducted on both of these cases suggested it to be the most successful housing assistance strategy.

In case of Nepal, the affected community are provided with financial assistance of US$3000 which will be distributed in trenches of three instalments, (initial instalment of US$ 500 followed by US$15,000 and US$10,000) based on their compliance to disaster resistant construction guidelines set on its revised building code. In this way the recreation of pre disaster vulnerability due to non-compliance with building byelaws will be omitted. Since local building technology and labours are promoted, local economies is believed to be uplifted. (PDNA) Apart from this, soft loan up to US$ 3,000 on community guarantee and up to US$ 25,000 with other necessary guarantees are

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provided at minimum interest rate of 2% and payback period of 10 years. As the construction cost in urban areas are high the latter option of soft loan is more preferred.

However due to additional bank service charge, loan insurance fee, property mortgage fee and valuation fee the interest rate will increase up to 4 %. Similarly for bankable mortgage the land must necessarily have vehicular access, which is not always possible in the context of core areas where houses are accessed through under path ways.

Besides, the Equal Monthly Instalments (EMIs) to be paid by the borrower as per the interest rate would amount to US$ 230 which is not feasible to low income families.

(HRRP) However this financial assistance promised by the government needed to go through a lengthy and contradicting procedure of identification of earthquake victims and their authenticity. New technical experts were hired by local authority and were sent to affected neighbourhoods to make visual assessment of the severity of impact of earthquake on these houses. The process was hugely criticised by locals as well as experts for not understanding the sensitivity of issue that demanded immediate actions.

A lot of political interference further delayed the procedure.

Beside this, the government also assured technical guidance, social mobilization and skill upgradation in order to make the approach feasible to female headed houses, senior citizens and other vulnerable social groups for whom financial help alone might not be sufficient. Alongside, handholding support to owners through capacity building in technical sector is planned to be coordinated by local government authorities.

Owners are given choice to construct building typology of their choice and size by adding resources from their own savings or labour or reuse salvage local building material if it does not affect the strength of the housing. In this way, the cultural identity of community and traditional architectural style could be retained. Besides, recovery of housing sector is proposed to be based on principles of equity, inclusion and participation of communities ensuring ‘build back better’ through upgrading living conditions. Furthermore, clustering of communities are intended to be exercised in special conditions only (PDNA).

Though the approach is undertaken with precautions for reducing the disadvantages and associated risks, this approach in itself promotes individualistic resilience rather than facilitating community as a whole to contribute towards reconstruction and develop social resilience. Besides, housing focused approach fails to grasp the opportunity of developing the neighbourhood to build together addressing the infrastructural enhancement and achievement towards the bigger goal of achieving well planned resilient society.

4.3 Review of Byelaws: Acquiring building permit is pre-requisite for commencing any construction in Nepal.

In order to facilitate reconstruction and assure safety, sustainability and resilience,

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Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local development prepared a set of guidelines on Settlement Development, Urban Planning and Building Construction (2016) under the technical guidance of Ministry of Urban Development, to be implemented in all municipalities and Village Development committee (VDC). The new set of guidelines with 45 standard criteria improves the shortcomings of NBC 1994. Much emphasis is given on open spaces, urban aesthetics, structural stability, environmental aspects and strict implementation by interlinking it with provision of service lines such as water, electricity, telephone, etc. The guideline is not only set for private sectors willing to obtain building permit, but also to local authorities, municipalities and VDC for preparing their own set of byelaws and risk sensitive land use map. The process of obtaining building permit is little more complicated in the sense that is necessary to obtain permission from other departments as well as ministries such as aviation, archaeology, education, population, public transport masterplan ,etc. as to provide flexibility or alteration from the here mentioned rules, as per the use and location of the building.

Safety is emphasized in this new set of guidelines through the provision of conducting soil test and geotechnical investigation for constructing public buildings and residential building higher than 5 story and those located in slope land. An additional requirement of obtaining Planning permit and emergency response plan for buildings of public use assures disaster preparedness. Similarly the height of boundary wall is limited to 1.2m with an additional 0.6m for net provision. In case of higher boundary walls needed for the purpose of safety structural design needs to be submitted. Likewise haphazard vertical expansion, building modification and functional change after acquiring completion certificate is discouraged. Hoarding boards, antenna and towers needs to be accepted before instalment in building. Besides, it also emphasises on construction by trained semi-skilled workers and supervision by government approved technical experts.

Sustainability is another underlined issue supported by rules for compulsory construction of septic tank. Rain water harvesting is encouraged to prevent rainwater to drainage and instead use it to recharge ground water table. Open spaces are stressed with new rule of having to leave 30% open for residential, 40% for public and 50% for building with area more than 250sqm. City beautification is also well-thought-out and is reflected through set of rules for omitting the boundary wall, maintaining uniformity through building’s colour, height, shape and design.

However, these new set of building byelaws prepared in much hurry, fail to address many essential issues and complexity of core areas. In the context of traditional settlements in core areas, it is herein mentioned that special rules will be applied for urban regeneration. Addressing to the land issues of core areas, the guideline encourages the concept of house pooling and land pooling to municipalities.

Nevertheless it applies a condition that the width of the road and the total areas not be less than the pre-existing one. It discourage functional mixed use, especially in core areas where streets are less than 6m and providing 2m setback is impossible.

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The new set of rules are strict in the sense that it does not allow permit based on any conditional applied terms and without transfer of the land ownership. It insists on acquiring completion certificate for supply of services, bank collaterals, etc. and discourage change in function or modification of building after acquiring it without consultation from authority. Similarly already constructed building violating the preexisting byelaws are set at risk of being demolished by the government on the owners cost. The upgraded guideline sets the minimum width of road to be 6m and setback to be 1.5m on its each side. The setback is set 2m for public buildings up to 17m or 3storey, 3m for public buildings and 5m for higher buildings. It also discourage construction of row houses of varying height beyond 3 storey. Similarly the minimum plot for housing is increased from 2.2 to 2.5 Anna (103 sq.m.).

These changes in byelaws might have potential to create a better living environment in new developing settlements. However, in the context of traditional settlements, where dense settlement already exists and are shaped by traditional features of narrow alleys, underpass linkages and inheritance practice, they create irrelevance and confusion.

Such inability to address the issues of traditional settlements where streets are already smaller than 3m and a setback of 2m will lead to significantly small ground coverage, has raised questions to its implement ability. As a result, inhabitants are forced to rebuild their houses without taking permission from the authorities. This has also halted many reconstruction initiatives and compelled communities to approach government for expropriation of their lands. Such cases will be explained in following chapters.

In this way the government of Nepal has made some slow paced initiatives in terms of reconstruction and recovery. It has transmitted the reconstruction to the community themselves through its owner driven reconstruction approach and minimum grants and loan provisions. It also encourages community efforts and social resilience and through its new set of byelaws intends to improve the physical features of the settlements. In the following three case studies the role of government will be minutely inspected and how these monetary grants and byelaws have triggered social resilience manifestation of the communities and how it has been perceived as a hurdle by the communities.

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Chapter 5. Case Study of Pilachhen redevelopment Project 5.1 Research Methodology The following description of the reconstruction approach by the community of Pilachhen is based on the secondary data collected during desk research through the newspaper publications and information of the website of www.mayafoundation.org.com. The primary data in the form of photographs collected during site visits, brief interaction with the community and semi structured interview with the community leader, Mr. Ramesh Maharjan and Local inhabitant and manager of the project Mr. Madan Maharjan is also included to explain the case in detail. Further Mr. Manish Maharjan, an architect from CE Solutions (technical aid providing consulting` firm) was also interrogated to get the insight of community involvement in the project and legal and technical complications.

5.2 Introduction to Study Area:

Lalitpur District

Lalitpur core

Figure 9 Location Map of Pilachhen

Pilachhen

Source: Prepared by Author based on government maps

5.2.1 Historical Evolution and socio-spatial settlement characteristics Pilachhen is a traditional settlement that is located close to the south eastern edge of the historical town of Patan or Yale. Historical evidences suggests that the early settlement of Patan was located on the highland of Pulchowk during 3rd century which further expanded when the Kirat (dynasty that ruled Patan before 5th century) lost their war against Lichhavis (Buddhist dynasty who ruled the valley from 5th-9th century)(Gustchow, 1981). During this time the settlements were concentrated on the unfertile highland while fertile slopes and flat lands were reserved for agriculture (Hosken, 1974). The settlement grew bigger and developed more compact forms after

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Malla (Hindu dynasty who ruled the valley from (12th -18th century) took over. The early medieval Patan hence marked the development of Buddhist settlement on its north eastern and eastern area. However, the Hindu culture were also present and city demonstrated adaptation of previous culture. These are reflected by the coexistence of temples as well as Stupas.

Researchers claim that the city used Vastu Purusha Mandala, a principle for settlement planning that placed Astamatrika (8 goddess) on city periphery.

Today, Lalitpur sub metropolitan city is the second largest city within the valley with 1,515 Ha area, population of 220,802 and density of 146 d/Ha. The urban core of Patan lies 5km from the capital city Kathmandu and situate itself on south central part of Kathmandu Valley.

The morphological study of Patan reveals that the two cardinal streets running from north to south and east to west, across the palace square of Mangalbazar forms the main spine of the city. Streets of different widths and alignments extend from this cardinal street. Similarly, there exists a diagonal street that extends from southeast corner to the northwest corner of the main spine. This forms another distinct nature of street which is almost parallel to the topographical contour. The eastern segment of the city created by this street marks the settlement of Jyapu communities. Pilachhen is one among the six Jyapu toles (tole is a socio spatial unit within traditional settlement) in Patan.

Figure 10 Cardinal streets forming the main spine of Patan Source: Map by Gutschow modified by the Author

Figure 11 Diagonal Street parallel to existing contour Source: Map by Gutschow modified by the Author

Machindranath Jatra Balkumari Jatra

Figure 12 Festival Route

Source: Map by Gutschow modified by the Author

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Figure 13 Jyapu Settlement in Patan and Balkumari Festival Route Source: Map prepared by author based on map by Pant, M., Funo. S., (2000). Spatial Structure of the Jyapu Community Quarters of the City of Patan, Kathmandu Valley.

The spatial features of Pilachhen, like any other Jyapu settlement, is characterised by built forms and open spaces developed over the period of time as per the spatial need of the community based on their occupation, weather conditions, material availability and most importantly, their way of life. ‘Pedestrian scale’ and ‘community space’ are the two main feature of this settlement. Streets formed the main backbone of the settlement that connects different hierarchy of courtyards encouraging walking and use of public spaces (Rai, 2011). The intersection of main streets across Pilachhen expands to form a community open square locally termed as ‘Lachhi’. A number of secondary access protrude from the main spine either in the form of narrow alleys forming cul-de-sac in a courtyard called ‘nani’ or underpass access through the ground floors of the buildings leading to smaller courtyards called ‘chuka’ (Pant,Funo, 2000). Typical to other Newari settlements, there are series of semi-private courtyards and public spaces in the form of neighbourhood squares, without clear demarcation of public and private domain (Korn, 1993; Wright, 1877). There are other elements such as temple of Natya Mudra Ganesh, as a protecting god, Pilachhen Bahal (semi open public rest house) as a place for conducting musical tribute to god and resting place in other times and Cha:pa chhen, a community building for conducting community functions and storehouse of common assets. These Cha: pa which serves as community storage place for cooking equipment, tents, dry food, and building tools (Bhandari et al., 2011) in ordinary days, also serves the post disaster scenario. During harvesting season both lachhi as well as nani serves as a common space for drying and stacking the agricultural products while at other times they are play area for children and interacting space for neighbours. Further,

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social and religious functions are held on these larger open space that develops a sense of belonging and attachment not just to the place but to the community in general.

Similarly there are smaller courtyards which are called saga: that functioned as a dumping space for degradable wastes of houses that was utilised as natural manure for farming in the past.

Composition of these narrow streets, housing blocks, numerous courtyards and plazas along with adjoining open spaces of traditional towns demonstrated sociable, cooperative, safe and secure neighbourhoods of ancient times (Shrestha B.K.,2011).

Besides, the compactness of these settlements and small squares in between provide additional structural reinforcement that developed better resistance against seismic force than standalone buildings would have (Dowman & Goodman, 2016). Thus it reduces the instant collapse and hence saves life during earthquake. Likewise, the traditional buildings used mud, brick and timber which were profusely available in the past and adopted load bearing technology which allowed building to be as high as four storey. These materials not only confines the failure of the building during the strike of earthquake but also promotes reusability of its construction materials (Marahatta, Pokhrel). For example, the binding material, mud, though weaker compared to brick and timber, cracks easily and displaces walls in case of thrust. Thus, prolonging the duration of its collapse and giving its residents time to evacuate (Pradhan). They were built with earthquake resistance features such a double framed symmetrical windows, use of timber wedge called chuku (Tiwari, 1998). Within these buildings ground floors were reserved as a storage space for the granary and had workshops for activities during nonfarming seasons.

The settlement of Pilachhen is inhabited by Maharjan, a caste within Jyapu community.

Jyapu is a distinct indigenous community within the larger Newari community of Kathmandu valley. The community claims itself as the preserver of Newari culture with their active involvement in different religious festivals either as a group of musicians playing traditional instrument in procession as in Balkumari Jatra and Ghode Jatra or carrying wooden logs from the forest to make the chariot during Rato Machindranath Jatra. They used to be introvert community who relied on agriculture for their living.

However, there exists a strong unity among these community held together by Jyapu Samaj, an organisation of the particular community. Beside this, they also belong to numerous other guthis that form as an integrating feature of Newari (belonging to Newars) society (Maharjan, 2011) who prefer clustered and united social life. Guthis are the ancestral organisations grounded on caste, kinship and occasionally on geographical proximity (Regmi 1978), association to which is either voluntary or compulsory and forms privilege and socio-religious obligations through group action. Besides, they are religious association (Slusser,1998), responsible for maintaining cultural performance by conducting jatras, pujas, rituals, festivals and feasts which varies in different locality, caste, purpose and religion( Maharjan, 2011). In ancient medieval period, these Guthis used to function as a bank, hospital, social work organization, theatre, security centre, court, network, centre of festivals and festivities, unity of Newari people and so on from

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birth till and after death in Newari society. In each and every festivity, breach and crisis, be it personal or social, Guthi was the solution centre which performs ritual actions in the society. They are also active in post disaster scenario for helping its members and developing resilience. These marks the institutional and financial sustainability of traditional Newari society through its reserved fixed and mobile assets. Such association with ‘a common interest group’ that shares ‘collective responsibilities and privileges’ (Slusser, 1998) develops participatory capacity within this community that is one of the three pillars of social resilience.

5.2.2 Transformation trajectory prior to disaster Over the period of time the traditional socio-spatial, physical as well as socio-economic features have undergone gradual transformation. The family occupation of farming or performing skill based activities are gradually being lessened as educated young generation prefer to explore new professions as per their interest and qualification. As a result the agro based utilisation of open space and the ground floors as workshop are rarely used. The traditional spatial feature of having a courtyard (Sa:Ga) for dumping degradable household wastes and using it as manure for farming has also vanished due to hygiene and smell issues. Renting and shop keeping has emerged as new source of income which is reflected by observing the usage of buildings along main roads. The growing spatial need and the inability of expand the buildings horizontally due to compact neighbourhood forms seemed to have encouraged people to opt for vertical expansion of the buildings. Another underlying reason behind this could be the temptation of rental income as the area is popular among renters due to its location within ring road and close to central business district.

Similarly out migration of economically prosperous members can be assumed. (Ramesh Maharjan, the past resident and community leader of Pilachhen reconstruction project, is the live example of this phenomenon). During an interview conducted on 12 April 2017, Madan Maharjan, an aboriginal inhabitant of Pilachhen and manager of Pilachhen reconstruction project, stated that though it is still a ‘Jyapu tole’ (neighbourhood of the particular Jyapu ethnic group) however recently families from Shakya, Bajracharya, Chitrakar and Shrestha caste have bought houses. Further there are many renters from outside the valley who have come for mostly for employment and education in most of the houses.

The common practice of housing modification in these settlements are the primary cause of its vulnerability to earthquake. Some economically stable households prefer to rebuild from the foundation by adopting modern framed construction technology in course of renovating their houses. Whereas those with limited resources prefer to add extra storey on top of the traditionally built houses with steel and concrete. This reflects the growing inclination of community towards modern construction technology.

Despite the fact that different traditional socio- spatial characteristics were giving its way to modernity, the cultural and religious practices are still intact and embedded in the lifestyle of the community. The festivals and feasts organised by Guthi and held in

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community centre (Cha:pa) is still a source of recreation and unity. As for instance, on the day of Ghode Jatra, held on the month of March, the idol of goddess Balkumari is carried on a chariot from its outhouse (Pith) and explore the city of Patan. The procession passes along the main road of Pilachhen and community takes part by caring the chariot, offering foods to goddess and holding feasts on Cha:pa.

Madan further explains that beside the old Guthis such as Pilachhen Manka Guthi (social organisation), Misa Pucha (women’s association), Ma Pucha (Mothers’ association) new form of social organisation and youth clubs have also been emerging. Unlike traditional guthis that emphases mostly on culture and tradition, these new association have their own field of interest (M Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 12 April).

Nonetheless, directly or indirectly these organisations help in uniting the community and develops solidarity from within.

Source: Author

Figure 14 Tissues Analysis of Pilachhen

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Figure 16 Lachhi (1)

Figure 15 Sattal (Left); Ganesh Temple (Right)

Figure 17 Nani (2)

Figure 18 Chuka with Chiba (Religious Shrine) (3)

Source: Author, April 2017

Source: Author, April 2017

Source: Author, April 2017

Source: Author, April 2017

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Figure 19 Pictorial Analysis of Existing Scenario

Source: Author

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5.2.3 Impact of Disaster:

Figure 20 Damaged residential buildings and vulnerable alleys (Source: Author, April 2017)

After the devastating twin earthquake and several aftershocks that followed, the traditional settlement of Pilachhen, like rest of its surrounding neighbourhood, was shattered into bricks and rubbles. Out of 110 houses present in the locality, 82 were either collapsed or hugely damaged making them unsuitable to live in. Due to the compact planning, each houses supported its adjacent house that didn’t allowed buildings to collapse and reduced chances loss of life or human causalities. However, the under maintenance and haphazard modification and extension of building adopting mixed construction practice were the primary cause of its damage. Despite this, people were compelled to live in these buildings risking their lives from possible aftershocks due to poor economic status. Similarly, those with outside links, went either to live in their relatives’ house somewhere else or search for temporary rents. The economy of the people that partly relied on renting out rooms to migrants were also hampered as these temporary inhabitants moved back to their place or origin and search for safer residence elsewhere. In this way, human assets were scattered but at the same time the common goal of reconstruction again lured the community to brainstorm on the solution together. Besides buildings, local temple of lord Ganesh present in the main courtyard was also destroyed and community open spaces became common ground for storing rubbles and remains of demolished buildings. In this way disaster profusely affected the physical, social and religious aspect of the settlement.

5.3 Social resilience As the disaster lead many of its local inhabitants homeless, the community was lingering with ways to return back to normalcy. Mr. Ramesh Maharjan, who also chairs a foundation called Maya Foundation and is a past inhabitant of Pilachhen, voluntary took the responsibility of leading the community towards resilience that not only considered the reconstruction of houses but holistic development as well as conservation of the area through tourism. While explaining the initial idea behind the reconstruction Mr. Ramesh emphasised the need of the project to be financially feasible to the community without relying on the government by saying, “Pilachhen is an agro-based society that

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majorly relies on farming for livelihood. With the passage of time people has sold most of their lands to meet the expenses of conducting ceremonies such as marriage, Bratabandha (ritual), etc. Hence now the community are left with the houses which are in verge of collapse and are damaged to inhabitable condition and small plot of land for farming. If they sale their farming land for reconstructing their houses, they would lose their means of livelihood and if not they are left with no money to rebuild. Similarly, being aware of the political situation and corruption left little hope from the government side. Thus it was necessary to reconstruct in such a way that the cultural value would be added to the place without big investments” (R Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 1 April). He explained the rich cultural, social and unique physical features of the neighbourhood and emphasises that it is necessary to commodify these culture as tools for economic sustainability by professionalising traditional skills while reconstructing. Though the idea of grasping reconstruction as an opportunity to revive the culture, re-establish the traditional features and thereby profit the community through tourism is beneficial from conservation and economic sustainability point of view, in my view, it does not necessarily matches the needs and aspirations of the transforming society.

Figure 21 Local and volunteer’s Participation in Project execution Source: http://www.mayafoundationnepal.com

However, the vision was beyond the imagination of the community who was financially struggling to reconstruct their own dwellings. Ramesh further explains how several convincing dialogue were required in the beginning to convince the local community about the long term advantage of the project and its feasibility. When the community still was not convinced, he used his links with technical consultant, CE Construction for transforming the idea into drawings and three-dimensional illustrations that helped people to follow his vision. (R Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 1 April) Having large in-house architects, CE developed conceptual visuals that considered the existing footprint of the building. However, no considerations were made about the existing internal layout of the buildings or its spatial details at that moment. Maya foundation, an NGO working previously in the area of capacity development, also was associated. He further used his political and business links and invited many high ranked people to Pilachhen where he presented the idea to the community as well as the delegates. Being impressed with the vision and its multi faced benefit to the community, the project was well encouraged by the delegates and even received verbal confirmation of $400,000 in 43

the form of donation by Mr. Sanduk Raut, a senior Ophthalmologist and executive director of Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology. Today he is one of the seven members of the Project Advisory Committee of Pilachhen Reconstruction and Tourism Promotion Project. Ramesh stresses that this was “a great turning point for the community” as they could now see the possibility of overcoming the financial hindrance (R Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 1 April).

With the vivid demonstration of proposed plans and concepts based on SWOT (an analysis that takes into consideration the strength, weakness, opportunity and threats of the project and site) and economical breakdown of cost based the previously hesitant locals of Pilachhen followed the vision of Ramesh Maharjan and agreed to pool resources in transforming it into reality. However Manish Maharjan, one of the architect involved in the project from CE, clarifies that these visuals were based on the footprints of the buildings irrespective of their internal environment. Thus with an initiative from a past resident who stands up as a leading force, the project was initiated as a joint venture of the locals of Pilachhen, Maya Foundation and CE Services (Manish Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 17 April).

The cost estimation of the overall project was $ 4.6 million. In order to make it economically feasible for the community, the project acquires 25% of the overall cost of the project from the donations and further reduce 25% by labour contribution from the community as well as outside volunteers and building material donations. The remaining 50% was to be managed by the owners themselves as initial invest 25% of which could be derived from soft loan scheme of the government at 2% interest rate and reconstruction grant provided by the government. Ramesh explains that with 50% reduced investment, community finds it feasible for them. Macha Raja Maharjan, another acting community leader of community reconstruction of Kilagal, suggested that the Maharjan of Pilachhen are financially well of and have significant amount of land that they can mortgage. When interrogated about feasibility of the project to even the poor members of the community Ramesh said, ”Irrespective of the individual financial condition, the community decided that each house should make equal contribution for the project based on their built up area”( (R Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 1 April)). He points out one major defect in the community solidarity when he explained that an added favour for selective members of the community raises many dissatisfying voices among the community. The additional amount of $ 0.55 million required for developing common spaces such as courtyards and reconstructing temple and monuments within the neighbourhood is also relying on donations to be generated by Maya Foundation.

5.4 Exogenous Forces fostering resilience Maya Foundation plays an intermediator role between potential donor agencies and the affected communities. It has also set up different committees for Construction, Procurement, Technical Support Committee and Management. However the overall 44

responsibility of the management and execution of the project is shared among the active members of the community themselves. The technical group consists of skilled engineers, overseer, electrician, plumber, carpenter, masonry etc. who will be referred to the site by the organizer as and when needed. The administrative group maintains detail report containing all the information about the budget, construction materials, attendance and records of timesheet and wages of volunteers to keep track of the income and expenditure and thereby assuring timely completion of the project.

Similarly, all the track records of volunteers based on their skill and their proper mobilization is maintained by Operation, Relation and Commodity Management Group along with detailed project description. Service management group takes the responsibility of managing food and water for the volunteers, as it is provided by the organizer on coupon basis. Similarly, this group also arranges transportation, accommodation and medical assistance. Overall reconstruction work as well as work output of volunteer groups is maintained by Monitoring Group. Thus community themselves are responsible for managing the volunteers, sequencing the construction, acquiring building permits, lobbing with the consultant and solving various social issues developed in the process.

The resilience of the community has revived the age old tradition of the Jyapu community where neighbours and relatives help each other to construct their houses through mutual aid. Madan informs that the association of community members formed for reconstruction constitute of the same members who are also in Jyapu Samaj, a local organisation of the particular ethnic group. According to him, 10,000 young volunteers are mobilised in the construction site by this organisation during slab casting. Besides the local skill of the community as electrician, plumber, carpenter, and mason, etc. Is being used in the process. Apart from this, the execution of the envisioned project as a touristic hub also relies on the collective efforts of the community (M Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 12 April).

Similarly, all the architectural design and drawings is being prepared by CE Solutions.

The structural issues are tackled by CE engineering solution. No monetary charge has been taken whatsoever for the services from the community or Maya Foundation.

Manish, project architect, explains that in the course of development of plans, the typical features such as brick exposed facade, Dalan (traditional door instead of shutter for shops) in the ground floor and room for homestay in the first floor was discussed and agreed with the community. However, during the preparation of municipal drawing, individual views of the owners or their spatial requirement was not consulted. He justifies this by saying that “The lands are so small that one can only put staircase and basic functions. Further there was time constrain”. Such form of reconstruction that looks at community benefit in totality but disregards the need and aspiration of individuals that for the community indeed is a form of pseudo participation and may risks modification by the people afterwards.

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5.5 Government as an exogenous force hindering social resilience Though the project was highly appreciated by the elites from Nepal Planning Commission (a high ranked advisory body of the Government of Nepal who was also responsible for conducting PDNA report) and frequently brought in hype by local newspapers as a Pilot project that grasped reconstruction as an opportunity to ‘build back better’, no act of fostering has been observed from the government’s side. Ramesh shares his opinion that the project will benefit not just the locals but also the government through revenue generation. In spite of this, there has been no specific support from the government. Rather than creating a supporting policy the municipality is delaying the building permit by overemphasising on negligible mistakes and not coming on inspection visit on time. Though as a community seeking for immediate housing solution this appears as a hindrance I feel that such inspection and strict enforcement of laws will avoid recreating the pre-existing vulnerability as a result of haphazard construction practices. However such delay are also causing difficulty in acquiring the government approved grants. Ramesh was well aware of the fact that it is unfair for other neighbourhoods if government make financial investment in a particular project like this but they expected from the government was to such community driven projects in granting building permit. He also hinted that the involvement of NGO and donations has stirred a negative interest among few corrupted government officials that indirectly expects bribe for easy execution of the project. As the project demands transparency to maintain faith of the community and donors such issues have become reasons for delay. (R Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 1 April)

5.6 Reflection of Social resilience on Socio-spatial Aspect In this case of social resilience, the pre-existing fallacy that construction using cement and steel reinforcements are safer has been further fuelled and taken to another level by completing erasing the remaining vernacular construction practices. Though this form of physical resilience, within the government prescribed building code, assures robustness however it is not resilient from earthquake point of view. Researchers such as Marahatta, Pokharel, Pradhan and Tiwari(1988) have argued that vernacular indigenous technology are more resilient compared to modern technology due to its flexibility, reusability and capacity to resist seismic forces. However both community representatives and consulting firm shares similar understanding that traditional load bearing construction limits the building storey, occupies more space by walls and doubts their strength.

While technology was happily sacrificed by the community for spatial enhancement, the pre-existing foot print of built and open spaces have been retained. Ramesh further explained that “The project does not adopt land or house pooling tools as it will affect

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the traditional spatial composition. Besides, it is more complex to convince local for such methods that would change the ownership of their property. Here it is difficult to convince people for a common structural members such as pillars. People there are happy even in limitations.”

Source: www.mayafoundation.com Figure 22 Proposal for Reconstruction by CE Solutions

The project intends to recreate the traditional lifestyle and maintain the traditional outlook by adopting brick facades and typical architectural expressions reflected by the doors, windows and slope roofs. With the ground floor as workshops reserved for traditional skills of weaving hakku patasi( handmade traditional cloth), wood carving, stone carving and metal crafts, souvenir shops and restaurants the project aims not just at reviving the local skills but generating more economic basis for the locals including women. However it is still doubtful from a practical perspective where young generations do not prefer to follow the family occupation. Apart from this the first floor is reserved for homestay for tourists which the community leader sees as a continuous source of income for the locals and claims it to be better than renting out space to migrants who ‘neither maintains cleanliness nor pays significant amount’. The above 47

floors are reserved for the use of the owners themselves. Thus even though at first glance the project appears as a mere housing reconstruction project, it targets to achieve a bigger goal of creating a self-reliable long term economic solution through tourism. On one hand the mixed use will give tourists a chance to experience the feeling of living in a traditional Newari environment while subsequently the owners could have an extra income source to enhance their economic status. Besides, the project also intends to improve the infrastructure status of the neighborhood by constructing collective septic tank, and rainwater harvesting and energy backup facilities at community level.

5.7 Complications in the Project: Though the preconceived problem for the collaborated approach was only financial, in the process of executing the plan, several complications are arising. In order to ease the construction the community agreed to demolish the damaged buildings in the front at first and begin reconstruction from the innermost courtyard. By doing so, it will be easier to bringing the construction materials and equipment into the innermost houses.

Currently, demolition is being carried out accordingly except for few households which have ownership issues such as multiple ownership or verbal agreement. Similarly due to inability of some household to arrange money, the construction is not following any particular order. Those members who could arrange the money first, their houses are being constructed at first and donated materials are being used on first come first serve basis. Such resilience that does not consider the poor members of the community for whom arranging 50% of the construction cost is a difficult is a major loophole in the community development. Instead of leaving out the minority community should think of alternatives that would support or uplift these economically backward members of their society.

Beside, though the community has not yet raised any objection to the structural construction of the building, there are now voices interrogating the success of it as homestay (M Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 12 April). Further many houses claims that the space is not sufficient for their own family use. Having an area specified for different purpose in ground and first floor will not be feasible for all. However in the rise of different opinions the leaders are convincing the community and are looking for way outs which are feasible for all. The project is still under progress with demolition of 44 damaged building and 18 buildings under construction (until April 2017) after 15 months from its inauguration on January 2016. The targeted completion date of the project is set after 3 years. Thus the actual test of the success of the social resilience, which was driven by the vision of an ex-community inhabitant, need to be tested by time in the coming days. On one hand the success of the project have possibilities of preserving and promoting the cultural essence and aesthetics of the settlement along with economic upliftment of the locals. While on other hand actual translation of the project is questionable as there are some expressions from within the community that

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their actual needs and aspirations are not fully considered in course of developing the project.

5.8 Conclusion of the Chapter The above case study of Pilachhen, demonstrated Maharjan community of an old heritage city of Patan has collectively turned the challenging impact of disaster into an opportunity for revitalising the neighbourhood through commodification of culture and economic sustainability through tourism. It emphasised how the embedded social resilience capacity of the community developed as a cultural practice of festivities and guthis was rejuvenated by the effort of community leader. The participation of community members in decision making and pooling of human resources through volunteering and project management appeared as positive endogenous force that catered the resilience. Beside this, there were other exogenous forces including donors and technical aid providers that also helped this effort. The community leader though belonged outside the community played the central character through his vision and links with these exogenous forces. Though less prominent, government also had some financial contribution in the process. Following stakeholder diagram explains the contribution of these forces towards social resilience.

Exogenous Forces Government   

Endogenous Forces Participatory Capacity

Adaptive Capacity

Grants Soft Loans at 2% Building Guidelines

Technical Support Committee

Social Resilience

Global Shapers

Jyapu Samaj

Volunteers Rotary Club

Construction Committee

Management Committee

Kind Support/ Material Donation

Maya Foundation

Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology

Figure 23 Stakeholders Diagram

Procurement Committee

  

Vision Links Leadership

Advisory Committee

Volunteer Support

Community Leader

Financial Donors 

Coping Capacity

CE Solutions  

Conceptual 3D Technical Drawings Source: Author

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Chapter 6. Case Study of Tekhacho Reconstruction Project 6.1 Research Methodology The case of social resilience of Kaminani has been examined initially based on the report prepared by University of Japan. The case was investigated minutely by critically observing the site condition and interviewing Mr. Ram Shrestha, an urban planner involved from the Nepali team during Japan-Nepal collaborated research for this site, and Mr. Krishna Suwal at an informal setting, the local inhabitant who has been leading the community. Following description of the case and project conception is outcome of the so collected primary data and also the views of the community expressed during interaction with the later.

6.2 Introduction to Study Area

Bhaktapur District

Bhaktapur Municipality

Tekhacho

Source: Prepared by Author based on government maps

Figure 24 Location Map of Tekhacho (Kaminani)

6.2.1 Historical Evolution and Socio-spatial characteristics Tekhacho is a traditional settlement of the ancient Newari towns of Bhaktapur. The rich history of this city, also popular as Khwopa or Bhadgaon, dates back to 12th century, during which it served as the capital of unified Kathmandu valley kingdom. However, Vamsabali, a researcher of Nepalese history claims its origin since Lichhavi period in 3rd century. The old settlement was developed on the highlands during this period. It is planned according to Mandala planning principle which suggests that there are eight peripheral octants (pith) of Astamatrika, eight goddesses, guarding the city and defining its boundary and at the centre Tripurasundari, the ninth and full goddess, is located who protects the central area in a circle around her. The expansion of city beyond this religiously set limit of ‘pith’ was a taboo and hence limited the urban expansion preserving the farmlands and ecology for agriculture and food sustainability in the past.

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Figure 25 Map of old Bhaktapur showing Pith of eight mother goddesses limiting city boundary, trade route, festival route and Spinal Street Source: Author

Unlike other core areas that developed around a palace centre, the city of Bhaktapur was settled along a street which is the ritual and commercial backbone of the settlement and runs from east to west parallel to Hanumantae River. (Gutschow, 2011). This spine is actually the ancient trade route to Tibet that links Taumadi, Dattatreya, Salan Ganesh, Kwathandau, Muldhoka and Nagarkot. This Malla town consists of roads that widen up to form squares with temples as prominent figure along with waterspouts, ponds, wells, rest houses, raised podiums at an irregular interval. The city is divided into two halves, the upper half called “Chwe” or “Tha;ne” with 15 wards and the lower part called ‘kwe’ or ‘Kwane’ with 9 wards. These two parts are designated in relation to the flow of Hanumante Rivers (Toffin, 1982) and even today festivals are performed in competitive way between these two parts of the city. The city is still considered as the country’s Cultural Capital and a living heritage with its explicit display of art, architecture, monuments, intangible culture, craftsmanship and indigenous lifestyle richly displayed in every nooks and corners.

Bhaktapur has dominance of Hinduism and majority of its inhabitants are very much associated with the traditional cultural practices and festivities. A portable image of each of these goddess are kept in Dyochhen(god house) within the city fragment, signifying goddess’s protection territory(ilaka) , while aniconic shrine are kept in the eight peripheral octants (pith) .Once a year, during Biska Jatra, the idol of Astamatrika is brought from the ‘god-house’ to its boundary shrine (pith), where the two shrines are

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united. This follows a specific circumambulation route known as Pradakshinapatha. The festival is celebrated with huge participation of people from all age group and gender within Newari community. There are various guthis of each tole that play active role in the procession by pulling chariot, conducting musical rally, organising for worshipping and conducting feasts. Apart from celebration of festivals, these guthis are also regarded as ‘an association of people belonging to certain cultural community established with an aim to solve local problems (Regmi, 1969) formed by ‘number of weak people to support one another in need of crisis’(Dhana Bajra) for the upliftment of life standard (Hridaya Chittadara). Such practice of being affiliated with guthis develop the habit of working and living in unity, proof of selfless sacrifice, mutual help, beyond any form of discrimination, exercise of management of income source and bearing responsibility turn by turn(Bajracharya, 2005). Similarly another route is followed for funeral rituals leading to cremation sites located in Brahmayani, Hanuman ghat and Massanghat.

Monuments in Courtyard

Map of Kaminani Underpass Alley Figure 26 Spatial Features of Kaminani

(Source: Author, April2017)

Tekhacho lies close to the settlement boundary of ancient town of Bhaktapur that now falls in ward number 16 of the municipality. On its adjacent, there is Bansa Gopal Bazar

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which is also part of ancient trade route. Kaminani, a smaller neighbourhood within Tekhacho which is inhabited by 35 households. People of Silakar, Awal and Baidya caste reside in their inherited properties in this neighbourhood. There are 3 front courtyards and 5 smaller back courtyards that serves as the source of light and ventilation in compact settlement. Barahi Dyochhen, house of one of the eight Astamatrikas, is located at very close proximity from Kaminani. During the annual harvest festival, Mohani, whole city is supposed to visit each of the nine pith in daily turn over nine days, the people in each goddess's section are responsible for decorating her pith and god-house on her particular day. There are two rest houses – one attached with Guthi house and another with private house. Krishna Suwal, a local of Kaminani, explained in an interview conducted on 3 April 2017 that out of 15 bajans (musical performance) that are played on a daily basis in Bhaktapur, one is performed in the pati of Tekhacho. This also marks the beginning of religious procession. Annually, six religious ritual and two processions are conducted by the neighbourhood. There are few small properties that belongs to the Guthi and is rented out for revenue which is used to conduct these rituals yearly.

6.2.2 Transformation Trajectory and Development Dynamics Bhaktapur is the smallest urban core of Kathmandu valley with an area of 656 Ha and density of 125. In this particular community 197 people used to reside before earthquake. There are families of different size with diversity in terms of occupation. Some still follow family occupation of sculptor making, carpentry and masonry while new generations are into new occupation such as shop keeping, engineering, architecture, etc. As a result, huge income gap persists within the community ranging from monthly income of $50 to $500. Houses made from brick masonry and mud mortar are more than 80 years old. These share a common wall in two to three sides forming courtyards accessed by narrow alley like most of the Newari settlements. Similarly due to Figure 27 Incremental housing Practice fragmentation of families and traditional (Source: Author, April 2017) practice of property division among family members, the habitable space has become insufficient for the inhabitants. Families reside in cramped situation occupying different parts of the same building without acquiring legal documents of their ownership. Due to insufficiency in habitable space

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people are extending their houses vertically upon the same traditional structural members. They have converted the cantilevered balconies into rooms by proving infills.

Such practice on one hand is against the byelaws set by the government while on other hand adds to the vulnerability of the built structure towards earthquake. Small and elongated plots have created limited access to light and ventilation. Few original inhabitants have sold their properties to people outside their community and preferred to live outside. The houses in general followed vertical functional separation of typical Newari house with ground floor utilized for toilet, storage and workshop, upper floors for living room and bedroom and attic for kitchen and worship room.

6.2.3 Impact of Disaster: PDNA report revealed that Bhaktapur is the most damaged city among the historic cities of the valley. There were 252 causalities, 5986 totally damaged houses and 2,092 partially damaged houses. In Kaminani itself, 35 households out of 42 households were heavily damaged. Due to haphazard building expansion without engineering consultation, houses in Tekhacho suffered significantly. The situation was further worsen when second earthquake of 7.2M hit the country on 12th May 2015. Though the houses appears safe from outside, Ram Shrestha, one of the planner involved in the study of the particular area, claims that the internal walls exhibit severe damage(R Shrestha 2017, personal communication, 4 April).

Source: J-Rapid Report

(Source: Author, April 2017)

Source: J-Rapid Report

Figure 28 Impact of Disaster

These houses are considered inhabitable by the rapid visual assessment conducted by Nepal Engineering Association and government and given red marking as an index. But t

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due to poor economic status, many inhabitants are still living in the same with increased vulnerability. They have demolished parts of their buildings which bared vulnerability to the neighbourhood with joint labour contribution from each household. In addition to this, the narrow alley, exhibit a chaotic situation with each houses being supported by rank post either resting on the corner of alley or horizontally relying on less damaged building on its opposite, acting as inclined or horizontal support. The case was further worse in the underpass alleys that were running from the ground floor of harshly impacted old buildings. Thus a ‘death trap’ scenario has been generated in the neighbourhood with risky escape routes and open spaces. The smaller courtyards have become a place for storing the remains of buildings. On one hand the disaster has negatively impacted the neighbourhood of Kaminani, while simultaneously it has compelled the community to come together for resilience.

6.3 Social resilience Suwal, a local of Kaminani who is also leading the community for resilience, shares his experience how members of the community demonstrated active response through joint evacuation to a safe refuse area. After confirming the safety of all the individuals in the neighbourhood. They then went to a nearby open space in a Party venue located 100m from the neighbourhood. This became the temporary shelter for next two weeks.

During this period community displayed remarkable act of altruism and selflessness.

The traditional practice of forming groups for conducting various activities during festivals, which was part of the living style of this community as well, came in handy.

People formed three management groups among themselves. Each of these groups were responsible for handling financial issues, management of evacuation site and collection of updated information. Necessary items such as food, sleeping material, etc. were managed by these groups. (K Suwal 2017, personal communication, 3 April) Just as Rebecca Solnit mentions in her book “A paradise built in Hell”, where she argues that the ‘past grunge evaporates’ and ‘people set up to meet the needs of the moment’ (Solnit, 2009), the situation of Kaminani and reaction of community was enriched with act of altruism and selflessness. The issues of dissatisfaction while living in joint families and different big and small differences in opinion while living in community became less significant at the moment and sense of urgency redeveloped solidarity and purpose driven initiatives. Suwal further explains, how the temporary shelter became a ground where locations for temporary shelters and its construction were discussed among the community. While aid from government took long to arrive, there were some contributions from private sectors and international agencies. The community themselves formed a group of 15 members for selecting the rental land and construction of temporary shelter with labour contribution from the community. (K Suwal 2017, personal communication, 3 April) The community themselves formed a group of house owners who wished to reconstruct collaboratively in which 30 households registered. However, since permanent 55

reconstruction was a more complex task that demanded technical expertise and financial backing the community seek technical and financial support

6.4 Exogenous forces fostering Social resilience While the community was still brainstorming about solving their permanent housing reconstruction issues, Japan-Nepal Urgent Collaborative Project within J-RAPID program, approached the community for providing technical assistance. The outside link of the community developed as a result of abroad studies to Japan was the reason behind this aid. This project was aimed at providing recommendation and identify challenges in recovery and housing reconstruction in urban area for which Tekhacho was selected as study site. The preliminary exercise for the project was the collection of data and survey in which the existing situation of the neighbourhood, its demographic analysis and their desirable needs for housing were understood. This was followed by discussion with the community by the Nepalese team of experts on the proposal concept. Based on this discussion, three proposal were prepared (R Shrestha 2017, personal communication, 4 April).

In the first option, 3 to 5 adjacent plots were combined to form a single plot and building constructed will have common stairs and foundation. This assures cost effectiveness as well as quality control. With less wastage of space in circulation, the new residences assures increased habitable space, comfortable circulation, better shaped and sized rooms and improved natural light and ventilation. The sharing of space will be based on percentage of previously owned plot size and original location of plots will be followed for habitable space. In the inside, there will be flexibility of having internal staircase or floor wise division of space as per the preference of inhabitants.

Figure 29 Kaminani First Option Source: Japan-Nepal Urgent Collaborative Project Report

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In the second option, all plots are combined as one and two staircase is provided for vertical circulation. The blocks facing the street will be used for commercial purpose in all floors except first floor which will be reserved for flats for household with smaller plots. The income earned through renting the commercial space will be used for construction loan and 10% will be distributed among all the households. Those who owned the plots along streets will be given twice then others. Remaining space will be shared on percentage basis as per original land area. However this proposal was disregarded by the people owning the roadside plots and also due to difference in opinion for selecting the space.

Further, commercial purpose building have different setback rule.

Rental Space facing street

Common Staircase

Figure 31 Kaminani Second Option Source: Japan-Nepal Urgent Collaborative Project Report

The third option was a hybrid model of first and second option. Here the idea of combining the plots were kept flexible. Two wide staircase will serve as a vertical circulation. The ground floors will be used for rentable spaces such as guest house, restaurants, workshops, etc. This would form basis for obtaining the construction loans while the upper floor would be used by previous owners for residence.

Three workshops were conducted in the procedure. In the first workshop these proposals were discussed with the community. The community was given time to think about the feasibility of the options, some even backed out not being convinced with the idea After further brainstorming with the community under the

Figure 30 Kaminani Third Option Source: Japan-Nepal Urgent Collaborative Project Report

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leadership of the community leader, the pros and cons of each plan was explored and final selection of option was done based on common voice. 80% of the people agreed to the concept of apartment. These options were discussed with the municipality and community representatives involved in similar reconstruction programme in other parts of the valley in the second workshop held in May by Nepali team. After hearing talk program conducted on house pooling in 2nd workshop, the first option was selected.

The plan was further improved and presented to the community on June. The overall procedure of finalization of design involving community took 8 months period.

Cultural hindrances towards the new concept The new concept of mixed use and apartment system was not readily accepted by the community as it would require sharing of staircase and common spaces. Though the community seemed to enjoy socializing in common spaces as courtyard, they had secret rituals and local cultures that would be affected by this ‘in one building’ communal living. When the three conceptual designs were presented to the community, huge reaction was expressed on the new concept of combining houses and clarity was seek in terms of its building guidelines. The change in position of the habitable space disregarding the original plot ownership was unacceptable, especially to those who owned the plots facing the street due to difference in land values. The breakdown of the construction cost and idea of % distribution of shared reconstruction cost, raised more questions and suggestions were made to minimise the construction cost by labour contribution. The idea of communal staircase also raised queries regarding its management problems and so forth. Beside the cleaning duties of common areas within a building raised question among the female members of the community. Currently the common spaces like courtyards are maintained by the municipality in terms of cleaning as well as providing stone pavements. However, Suwal assumes that these are minor social issues that can be solved in course (K Suwal 2017, personal communication, 3 April).

6.5 Government as an exogenous force hindering social resilience The community decided to form a company for building the apartment with joint loan from the government and grants from donor organization. However, it was necessary to declare the function of the building beforehand. If they purpose to use the building as hotel there were additional norms set by the municipality regarding access roads and 30% space to be allocated for parking, etc.

The community do not have any political links that could be used for any form of help.

In fact the people here are against the ruling party in Bhaktapur. So the only expectation from the ruling party that they have is not interfere with the process and creating difficulties. When the design was presented to the municipality by the Japanese team, only negative feedbacks were received. They wanted the design to be more traditional and meet the building norms of Bhaktapur. If the government wants to reconstruction

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to address traditional features and values they must encourage such reconstruction by providing subsidy and easy loans. The community leader emphasizes that if they receive funding in terms of loans or some other ways then they will be able to implement this reconstruction project regardless of what the municipality says or does.

The municipality has implemented the rule to make sure all the new construction in Bhaktapur area must have traditional façade and also have incentives for it. If the building is constructed as per the norms and the completion certificate is received from the municipality, the municipality will reimburse the 75% of total amount send on the fare face brick (dachi appa) work in the façade. However, people do not usually take completion certificate from the municipality as the buildings constructed usually do not follow the norms completely. Further it’s not sure if the incentive is still being distributed as there is no elected personnel in the municipality and the currently employed officials do not have knowledge of its importance.

6.6 Challenges in Reconstruction 6.6.1 Financial Challenge and exploration of way out The community of Kilagal consists of poor inhabitants who mostly relies on daily wages earned by working as masons and carpenters. More than 90% of the community have no other form of property beside the house that has been damaged by the earthquake.

Because of this they are neither able to arrange big amount of money needed for reconstruction nor are they eligible for obtaining loans from bank that demands some form of collateral. Further banks do not accept land that has no access to road as mortgage and most of the houses in courtyard settlement have underpass alleys as only access. Suwal expresses his disappointment saying, “If they had properties to keep as collateral then they would not be asking for the loan in the first place. Rather they would initiate the reconstruction themselves” (K Suwal 2017, personal communication, 3 April).Further, due to multiple ownership on same property and use of building by only one of the owners, there i.e. also confusion regarding who should take the loan from the bank and how should they repay the loan. Suwal further expresses the helplessness of the community by saying that no decision have been made till date to issue the loan promised by the government. He complains that the initial grant is also not sufficient to initiate the reconstruction. (K Suwal 2017, personal communication, 3 April) Traditionally these community belongs to different Guthis based on their own castes.

These Guthi’s not only includes the people from this community but also from other places who belong to the same caste. Since, all the members of the Guthi are affected in one way or the other by the disaster, it is difficult for Guthi members to decide on whom to help and by what mean. Thus in spite of having funds, the money is not spent on reconstruction of housing. These are rather spent on organising feasts 4-5 times in a year complains Suwal. In my opinion, such Guthis could have played a significant role by helping its own community members in the face of such disasters.

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In order to overcome the financial constrain, different ways of arranging the amount was explored by the community. There were international links of the community leader who were willing to financially support the community initiatives. On their suggestion, new ways of collecting donations by crowd funding in social media was adopted by the community. According to Suwal, a huge possibility of obtaining the donation was brought to an end when the government announced that all the fund coming for reconstruction and aid should come to the government treasury first and will be distributed centrally by the government. The reason behind this was the infamous corruption practice in government sector of Nepal. (K Suwal 2017, personal communication, 3 April) Beside this community is also willing to contribute labour and reuse building material to minimise the cost of reconstruction and to make it feasible for the community.

Besides the reasoning of increased built up area, another reason why they agreed for the new concept of mixed use building was the future economic prospectus of the project. The economic vulnerability is so prominent that people are ready to lease out their property for few decades so that their upcoming generation could have a house in their name. However the older aged community were not willing to leave their property due to place attachment. In my view, this kind of indirect forced migration created by the earthquake will not only impact the immediate functional usage of the urban tissue but inject seeds of massive transformation.

However, since the process of social resilience is taking a long time, one of the community member with financial resources have already started rebuilding his house.

Thus, in my way of thinking, such individual resilience that emerges out of delay of social resilience, loosens the collaborative efforts and leaves the vulnerable members of the community uplifted. The project is being thought to be executed phase wise as demolishing everything and reconstructing appeared quite impossible due to many complications. In the first phase, three buildings are being planned to be rebuilt to set an example to the community. However, the building in the middle is owned by two brothers among which one is out of country. This has also been delaying the process.

6.7 Conclusion of the Chapter Social resilience is a collaborative approach where endogenous and exogenous forces work in partnership for the common cause to rebuild better. In the case of Kaminani, there was participatory capacity rooted by the cultural and traditional practices of participating in festivals and working as a team in such processions. Similarly there is also adaptive capacity that is willing to improve and accept new form of change.

However part of this capacity is blurred by the cultural hindrances in the form of old family issues and traditional beliefs. Similarly the community is willing to pool resources and contribute their labour to rebuild. However, financial crisis has limited this capacity to large extent. There is also leadership within the community that has links with exogenous forces such as financial and technical aid providing agencies.

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These outside forces are willing and to a large extent has helped the community to shape their needs and aspirations in the form of conceptual drawings by J-Rapid. However, government has played a hindering role by putting a halt to the design proposals prepared by the technical aid providers. Similarly much of the mush of the financial help has been obstructed by the decision of the government to manage all the donations through prime ministers relief fund. To add on it, the grants and soft loans assured by the government is also appearing as an insufficient aid which is rather impossible to acquire due to legal complications. Thus in spite of several efforts the community has not been able to recoil and improve the pre disaster condition of the neighbourhood.

The following stakeholder diagram explains the resilience efforts by different stakeholders.

Endogenous Forces of Community Coping Capacity

Adaptive Capacity

Participatory Capacity

Social Resilience Economic Hindrances

Cultural Hindrances

Community Leader  

Links Leadership

Financial Donors  

International individual donors J-Rapid

  

Exogenous Forces

J-RAPID

Government

Halt

Figure 32 Stakeholder Diagram

Grants Soft Loans at 2% Building Guidelines

  Halt



Analytical Study of Kaminani Proposal of Plans with community participation Conceptual drawings, 3d model Source: Author

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Chapter 7. Case Study of Kilagal Urban Regeneration Project 7.1 Research Methodology: The urban regeneration of Kilagal is a much talked about project of public private partnership that emerged as a reconstruction approach following the earthquake of 2015 in Kathmandu. For the investigation of the case the site was explored and post disaster situation was visually analysed. The community leader Mr. Macha Raja Maharjan was interviewed to know how social resilience occurred. Surya Sangachhen, the project manager from National Society of Earthquake Technology (NSET) (Technical aid providing private organisation) was also interviewed in the course. Besides, the head of Department of Physical Planning of Kathmandu Municipality was interrogated to understand government’s role in the project and its vision. Following description of the case is based on the above mentioned data.

7.2 Introduction to Study area

Kathmandu District

Kathmandu Municipality

Figure 33 Location Map of Kilagal

Kilagal

Source: Prepared by Author based on government maps

7.2.1 Historical Evolution and Socio-spatial Characteristics Kilagal is an ancient settlement that falls under 18 number ward within Kathmandu municipality. Out of its five urban areas, Kathmandu Municipality is the largest one with an area of 4,945Ha. The city has the largest agglomeration of urban population that counts 975,453 and exerts population density of 197inhabitant per hector. Historically, this neighbourhood used to be part of middle town within ancient Kathmandu city which was divided into three small towns that is Upper. Middle and Lower towns. The present ‘complexity of urban territory’ of Kathmandu characterised by different alignments and sizes of blocks owes its difference to different stages in development that originated as nucleated settlements in 5th century. The historic city in Lichhavi Period during 5th century was situated on a plateau located 20m above the two holy

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rivers Bagmati and Bishnumati that meets at a distance of 1.5km in the south west direction from the current urban core (Gutschow, 2011).Three villages namely Koli, Daksinakoli and Vaidyagrama were identified as initial settlements that expanded in course of time.

Figure 34 Map of old Kathmandu Source: Map prepared by the Author based on map by Gutschow (Architecture of the Newars)

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The morphology of the city and its urban territory is believed to be defined by the shape of Khadga (a tool) as a divine attribute to ensure the protection and prosperity by 8th century king named Gunakamadeva. Researcher Gutschow claims that the presence of river did not play any significant role in the development of Newari cities as no embankments were built along the river bank and even the cremation sites were located at distance from the river bank (Gutschow, 2011). However the city is argued to be the result of “conscious city planning” with the presence of numerous gates piercing the protective walls on the city boundary (Slusser). It also signifies the constant risk of invasion from other kingdoms that the city was exposed to. Though no archaeological records of the walls has yet been discovered, the houses in the periphery marked the edge of the urban territory with the characteristics of wall. The ancient trade route passing diagonally through the city is assumed to be the spine of the city that connects it to Tibet (through Bhaktapur) in north-east and to India in south west. While several ‘crooked lanes’ protrudes from ’organic pattern’ of ‘ancient roads’ and ‘planned blocks’ (Gutschow, 1981). Like other Malla towns this town also follow the same logic of palace centric planning with elites residing on its immediate surrounding followed by people belonging to higher castes and lastly the lower castes lived in the periphery (Wright, 1877). The movements of gods during religious procession such as Seto Machindranath Jatra and Indrajatra during which people pull the chariot from different parts of the city following the specific path and the daily activities of the people justifies the organic pattern of streets.

The physical form and spaces in-between are the reflection of cultural practices and intangible heritage that builds social and cultural resilience in Newari settlements.

There exists a link between indigenous public spaces and routes of evacuating potential (Singh, 2015; Wamsler, 2014). The escape routes through the “maze” coincide with festive procession called jatras. Hence these Jatras were actually earthquake rehearsals in which the practice of pulling Chariot from tole (neighbourhood) to tole via the sequence of public spaces every year made the community aware of the open spaces around them and safest way of evacuating to a bigger open space (Khyo) present outside the city premises. In the past, cultural homogeneity within heterogeneous Newari society persisted in these settlements. Kathmandu was classified into twenty –four toles, neighbourhoods, based on the classification by profession. Such ‘pockets of localised homogeneity’ enabled community interaction (Tiwari, 1999) and developed sense of belonging not just to a place but to the community. Each community has specific task and responsibility during building and pulling of chariots. Repeated communication and participation during such festivals builds community coping capacity against disaster (Shaw, Srinivas& Anshu, 2009: Bhandari & Okada, 2009). Besides, during the occurrence of disaster and hence created stress, practice of cultural heritage in the form of worship and procession develops social cohesion (Manandhar; Parajuli, 2015).

Furthermore, these open spaces have humanitarian capacity expressed with the presence of resources and infrastructures such as community shelter (patis) and water supply system in the form of vernacular canals and water spouts called hitis (Manandhar; Parajuli, 2015) accessible for delivery of emergency aid.

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Figure 35 Map of Dumbo Chowk

Source: Modified by the Author based on maps made by NSET

Dumbo Chowk is a small neighbourhood within Kilagal. This neighbourhood again exhibits similar spatial composition of buildings tightly compacted along narrow alleys and courtyards. The courtyards are of differing shapes, sizes and ownership but acts as a source of light and ventilation. There are 14 courtyards and a private garden in terms of existing open space within the pilot and sufficient open spaces on its periphery again in the form of courtyards and streets. Out of the 14 courtyards present, 4 are privately owned chowk, 1 courtyard belongs to Guthi (local community organisation) and rest are public. Traditional wells and smaller forms of religious monuments are present in these courtyards that are commonly used by the neighbourhood. There are 3 wells and 2 religious shrine, Chiba (belonging to Buddhist community) and Narayan Shrine 65

(belonging to Hindu) within the project area. Narrow alleys running from the ground floor of buildings connect these courtyards and are the only access to the surrounding buildings. The neighbourhood itself is an interesting composition of mass and void, where the open courtyards are interestingly connected by narrow alleys of differing width and underpass access through the private buildings. All the buildings are used for residential purpose only. In terms of the existing typologies, 34 buildings are traditional in nature, 4 are modern while 21 houses have been interfered with modern interventions. Four of these intervened buildings and one of the modern building were found not to be constructed within Bye-law obedience.

7.2.2 Transformation Trajectory Prior to Disaster Kilagal is an old residential neighbourhood with history of more than 300 years that still pose traditional characteristics of having row houses along alley and courtyards connected with underpass alleys. Machha Raja Maharjan, an aboriginal from the neighbourhood of Kilagal gave an insight to its history by saying that previously the houses in this neighbourhood used to own huge chunk of lands for footprint. Most of these traditional buildings have undergone vertical divisions in course of being inherited from generation to generation leading to plot size as small as 6m 2 and frontage of just 2m (M R Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 7 April). Mr. Sangachhe, the project manager from NSET, further add that Figure 36 Housing situation of Kilagal the traditional built up area of four storey (Source: Author, April 2017) could not suffice the spatial need of its inhabitants. This has compelled many locals to rent out the space to poor and live elsewhere (S Sangachhe 2017, personal communication, 6 April).

Apart from this the traditional settlement give no scope for private car parking or even the possibility of four wheeler vehicles (including emergency vehicles) to reach the houses with ease. Further the vertical extension of buildings that blocked the sunlight in most of the houses that has created a dull living environment. Thus well to do owners prefer to sell their property or give it in rent and move out to sub urban areas with modern facilities such as private garden or easy accessible of cars, etc. The so created vacancy is filled by poor migrants who are looking for living space close to their working area in the city centre. Only economically challenged people live in such areas. Thus in the absence of reinvestment and maintenance, the neighbourhood is turning into a residual patrimony devoid of interest. Thus the historically rich and admirable 66

settlement is undergoing slow process of urban decay that is degenerating the urban environment economically as well as culturally.

An observation of the site reveals how these traditional row houses have been giving way to transformation as every other house in between number of traditional house has been modified to gain extra floor or have been converting balconies to room by constructing corrugated galvanised iron sheets as cheap curtain walls. These settlements seemed vulnerable from fire and earthquake point of view. Similarly the smaller courtyards have become darker atrium in-between taller surrounding building that lacks functional usage. These small open spaces are further being encroached by the inhabitants as a store for their unusable stuffs. These degrading urban characteristics of the neighbourhood had been a matter of concern for some local government officials as well as non-government organisations and aid agencies.

However, it was difficult to convince all the inhabitants to participate in urban regeneration due to existing economic and social issues in spite of several advocacy by the community leaders shares Machha (M R Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 7 April).

Figure 37 Degrading Condition of Courtyards and surrounding building (Source: Author, April 2017)

In context of social asset, new form of social organisation such as ‘tole sudhar samiti’ (neighbourhood improvement organisation) and youth clubs are emerging in this neighbourhood that has been active in developing resilience.

7.2.3 Impact of Disaster and Need of Social Resilience: Machha further explains that the event of disaster following the earthquake of 2015 was an eye opener for these locals. They realised the vulnerability of the neighbourhood in which they were residing and the risks of predicted future hazards in these decaying neighbourhoods (M R Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 7 April). Most of the houses were immensely damaged beyond repairable condition while few collapsed and few suffered repairable damage. The connecting passage running through ground floors 67

of these buildings also appeared as a risky connector between courtyards during field visit. Similarly the courtyards itself has become a place for disposing construction waste obtained from destructed buildings.

Many of the houses are now empty as the people no longer feel safe to reside in such vulnerable buildings. The renters moved out in search of some other safer solution while owners became renters in some other safer neighbourhoods. In this way, people were either scattered or compelled to live in vulnerabilities.

Due to the fact that many of these houses were actually part of one big house and even today share common walls as main load bearing structures, their individual Figure 38 Buildings instigating reconstruction is difficult to perceive. On vulnerability to alleys top of this, individual reconstruction would (Source: Author, April 2017) demand individual structural members that would further reduce the existing usable space. The new set of guidelines prepared on Settlement Development, Urban Planning and Building Construction (2016) prepared by the government after the earthquake have further added up legislative challenges to reconstruction. It is specified herein that the widths of columns needs to be minimum of 0.32m and staircase of 1m for residential building. Beside there were financial constrain as these residential buildings belonged to poorer communities who could hardly afford renovation yet alone reconstruction. All these factors that made reconstruction a challenge that needed collaborative efforts rather than individual resilience. However in the dilemmatic aftermath situation, community was confused as through what means and in what ways should reconstruction be carried out. Thus they approached the local community leader, Mr. Macha Raja Maharjan, who had been advocating the importance of urban regeneration in the past (M R Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 7 April).

7.3 Endogenous forces hindering Social Resilience: After much brainstorming, the community realised that reconstruction of their housing should be done in such a way that their pre-existing spatial issues will be solved and better stability be assured through the new concept of house pooling. This was an entirely new concept in which houses would be pooled together by combining all the plots as well as buildings as one entity (just like lands are pooled in land pooling) and redistributed to the owners after reconstruction. The concept emerged as a new idea

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for urban regeneration in Institute of Engineering by Prof. Jib Raj Pokharel (Lal, personal communication, 8 June). However, agreement of few community members was not sufficient as such initiative demanded handing over of land ownership papers of all the owners along with their agreement for urban regeneration to a legal body. This was indeed a tough nut to crack as the community itself consisted of individuals of varying opinions.

Machha elaborated that living in joint families in the past with big and small family issues had developed sourness among the members of the family in these Newari community. Though the Newari community appear united at first glance there are issues within these communities that appears as the major challenge for collaborated efforts. The different house owners in a traditional neighbourhood are part of large joint family in the past who used to own and use sufficiently large Newari houses. There are difference in attitudes of mother-in-law towards their own daughters and daughter in laws and uneven division of household work among various daughter in laws (as there is less practice of hiring a maid in such families) that developed sourness within the female members of the families. Similarly, there are many issues among the brothers during the process of property inheritance from their fathers that has been passed on from generations to generations. All these negative endogenous forces made it difficult to convince them for collaborated reconstruction approach. (M R Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 7 April) Beside this, the human nature of looking only at individualist benefits and unwillingness to participate in actions of common benefit prevails in this community as well. Another social hindrance is the insecure attitude of Newari communities who are so much concerned about their less privileged counter parts going ahead of them that they feel that their improvement of living style may risk the prestige of privileged group. Further the owners of the houses aligned to roads outside the courtyards and those who had recently constructed their houses are unwilling to participate in the common attempt.

There seemed many underlying reason behind this unwillingness. Firstly, the extent of impact of earthquake was varying due to the level of maintenance by the individual owners. Secondly, the valuation of the houses along the main street is higher than that situated in the inner courtyards. And thirdly, the concept of house pooling may not assure the same location of their ownership of building. Such reasoning’s, though logical from individual perspective, is hindering the social resilience in totality.

Sangachhe explains the complication in this regard by saying, “without the participation of houses alongside roads, it is difficult to regenerate the whole neighbourhood. In order to convince the uninterested groups whose participation was essential, the community proposed that if the existing condition of buildings are technically sound, they may not require to demolish their buildings. Minor adjustments in the exteriors to make the façade look harmonious were desired. In case demolition be required, the community should bear the expense for its reconstruction as a compensation” (S Sangachhe 2017, personal communication, 6 April).

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A lot of convincing was done by the community leader to the less ignorant community members, giving them the examples of community organisation in the form of Guthi.

These Guthis developed the tradition of volunteering during rituals and festivals and reserving money and land for financial backing in the past. Similarly in terms of construction technology the Newari civilization were way ahead than the western civilisation by developing houses and temples using local materials that was climate sensitive and rich in terms of architecture. However due to the inability to move forward with time and adapt and accept the new concepts, the community is stagnant to developments. The community leader shares his experience of it being easy to convince the recent generations than old generations who would rather prefer to live in limited space on which they could exercise full ownership than combining the plots and sharing ownership of building. Further there were questions regarding the maintenance of common spaces.

The benefits of redevelopment as well as the probable loss of missed opportunity was explained by giving examples to the community to convince (M R Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 7 April). Surprisingly, Guthis which are believed to be a social organisation working for common benefit did not appear to be very active in reconstruction. Machha explains, “The concept of Guthi has been adopted by other communities and who have formed various social organisation that works for the upliftment of their respective community. Whereas, among Newars, function of these Guthis have been limited in organising feasts and festivities only. In the past Guthi members used to reside in same neighbourhood and hence they used to volunteer and also provide financial aid .However nowadays due to increasing population and limitation of space most of the Guthi members have migrated outside“ (M R Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 7 April). .

Thus after convincing the community, it was necessary to have technical, financial and legal support to translate the concepts to more vivid form. At first NSET, an NGO involved in similar urban regeneration projects, were approached. But due to legal issues related to land ownership and transfer of rights, NSET suggested the community to approach the government first and NSET would provide the technical assistance.

Thus, on September 2015, 59 land owners of Dambo Chok, neighbourhood within Kilagal, collectively presented a joint application for land acquisition to Kathmandu Valley Development project along with the permission for urban regeneration. Regmi, head of department of Physical development of Kathmandu Municipality (KMC) explained that when KMC was approached, the proposal was readily accepted as a pilot project as the government was also considering the urban regeneration of Kilagal prior to earthquake. Thus ‘Urban Regeneration at Kilankwo, Dumbo Chowk’ was formally initiated with support from the national level through Nepal Reconstruction Authority in collaboration with Kathmandu Metropolitan city (KMC), National Society for Earthquake Technology-Nepal (NSET) and Residents of Dumbo Chowk with support from USAID/OFDA under Public Private Partnership for Earthquake Risk Management (3PERM) Project.

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7.4 Exogenous forces fostering Social resilience 7.4.1 Role of National Society of Earthquake Technology (NSET) NSET was responsible for conducting Detail Damage Assessment (DDA), preparing feasibility study and all the technical issues including concept and detail design. A seminar was conducted by NSET to present the outcomes of DDA and discuss the feasibility studies in KMC. Different analysis maps were prepared highlighting the existing built use, typologies of buildings, their compliance with prevailing building bye laws and their damage grade to give idea to the community about existing situation. This was presented to the community on half day mini workshop organised on 16th December 2015, jointly by residents of Kilagal, KMC and NSET. Rather than just targeting on merging the houses, the concept aimed to attain holistic development by regenerating the decaying urban area addressing its socio-economic, environmental and cultural aspects. Three urban regeneration models were prepared as options (two

by NSET and one my KMC). In these options, different possibilities of redeveloping the settlement by taking advantage of the developing trajectories of the area as economic area along with improved infrastructures to cater the emerging urban needs were present. This seminar gave a reflection of the current scenario to the community along with the three options of regeneration model on which they were encouraged to share their views and interact directly with KMC regarding legal attributes, compensations and government support. Thus high level of community participation was observed with total of 88 participants including 21 female. (Workshop Report on Urban Regeneration of Kilankwo Dumbo Chowk,2015) The proposed design

Figure 39 Regeneration Plan Option 1

Source: NSET

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In the first option proposed by NSET, the overall neighbourhood was dissolved into 5 blocks, 3 courtyards and sufficiently large roads. Shops were provided in ground floor while upper floors were planned with residential apartments. Few blocks included basement floors as well.

Figure 40 Regeneration Plan Option 2

Source: NSET

The second option, showed maximum resemblance with the existing mass void composition with added road networks for better accessibility. Private courtyards, kitchen garden and most of the public courtyards were retained. Fragmented plots were grouped and developed as mixed use buildings with apartments in upper four floors.

Figure 41 Regeneration Plan Option 3 (by KMC)

Source: NSET

The third option was proposed by KMC, two five- storey high apartment blocks replaced the traditional mass void composition. Road were provided on its periphery for allowing 72

emergency vehicular flow. All the 14 courtyards and private garden were resolved to form a composition with 109m2 central courtyard and three smaller courtyards. The bigger block proposed to have a basement floor and some 42 shops and rentable open spaces in the ground floor. The smaller block which was L-shaped and retained the original shape of the courtyard due to the presence of religious monuments also proposed to have five shops in the ground number of rentable/residential spaces till the fourth floor. Three stairs and a lift were provided for vertical circulation.

7.4.2 Role of government: Since this kind of social resilience was first of its kind in Nepal it has been observed as a Pilot project whose completion will follow 20 similar urban regeneration projects in the future claims Uttar Raj Regmi (U K Regmi 2017, personal communication, 9 April). He insists that there are possibilities of Kilagal being worst example of urban regeneration project because of limited public space in that area. Many national and international non-government organisations and donor agencies including Japan showed interest in funding the project. However community and the government is not seeking any donors or international aid as various INGOs tends to make paperwork and benefit from the paperwork without aiding the community points community leader (M R Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 7 April).

It appeared to me that a lot of funds from USAID was utilised during the study of the area that government as well as locals have lost faith that involving an INGO might help in benefitting the community directly. The detail site survey and analysis needed prior to the commencement of such project is essential yet costly and time consuming procedure that demands technical expertise and money to afford these. KMC claims that being a local body they have a better understanding of the situation and aspiration of people. Hence government is interested in being directly involved in the reconstruction with community partnership.

Being new concept, new law and policy is required not only at municipal level but at national level for its execution. This has caused delay in its implementation. In the lack of local representative the process is further slowed down (M R Maharjan 2017, personal communication, 7 April). Currently there are no policy regarding house pooling. The concept and policies of apartment and land pooling has been combined for this purpose as for now. As promised by KMC, the construction of public amenities such as road, drainage lines, telephone as well as architectural and structural design of the building and building permit will be done by the government from its own fund. Even for the construction of the building, KMC will make the initial investment as it is a pilot project claims community leader. The ownership will also remain in the name of government until the share of each household would be repaid by the owner to transfer the ownership to their individual name. The unit cost of the project will be calculated and house owners will be given the share as per their existing share of the property after they payback the cost to the government (M R Maharjan 2017, personal communication,

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7 April). However Regmi, contradicted this statement by saying that out of 50 million investment required, 40 million will be borne by the community themselves while 10 million will be contributed by KMC which is not a very big investment for KMC. Similarly as the intensity of earthquake was less than what was predicted by researchers many building constructed without considering the byelaws have survived the impact and given wrong encouragement to such house owners. New building bye laws for core area is being drafted to avoid repetition of vulnerability and to cater social resilience. (U K Regmi 2017, personal communication, 9 April).

7.5 Reflection of Social resilience on Socio-spatial Aspect Out of the several options prepared by the technical aid providers, it was told that people opted for the option in which all the traditionally featured buildings of the neighbourhood were proposed to be replaced by a single mixed use building with economic functions in the ground and first floor and residential usage in apartment system in the first floor and above. Though it might be financially cheaper, less time consuming and easier, such reconstruction disregarding the age old built form and spatial composition will fade the identity of the place argues Sangachhe(S Sangachhe 2017, personal communication, 6 April). In an attempt to develop the area fulfilling emerging urban needs and provide light and ventilation, Regmi however seemed least concerned about the matter as he insisted that Kilagal regeneration is trying to redevelop residential area not cultural heritage site. It is rather important to develop residential area with proper provision of light and ventilation and sufficient space as per the size of the family and their standard habitable space requirements. Further he argues that the small and scattered open spaces needs to be consolidated during this attempt of redevelopment so that in the incidence of another disaster a sufficiently large space can provide easy escape. It is indeed a matter of discussion whether to prioritise conservation of houses which by now have gained the status of heritage or to seize the opportunity to reconstruct to correct the shortcomings of the old design to make it suitable for current needs.

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7.6 Conclusion of the Chapter Endogenous Forces of Community Adaptive Capacity

Participatory Capacity NSET

Government    

Grants Soft Loans at 2% Building Guidelines Conceptual drawings

Figure 42 Stakeholder Diagram

Social Resilience Community Leader  

Links Leadership Exogenous Forces

 



Analytical Study of Kilagal Proposal of Plans with community participation Conceptual drawings Source: Author

In the above case study of Kilagal, the resilience of the community directed towards selfexpropriation by taking a big decision of handing over their ownership documents to the government for initiating the regeneration process. As the decision was made collectively the participative capacity as well as adaptive capacity of the community to accept the new change was demonstrated. However instead of coping with the situation, their decision to approach the government reflected the trust of the community in government and link of community leader with the government. The resilience is relied majorly on the exogenous forces of government and technical aid providing agency (NSET). The technical aid providing agency has helped the social resilience attempt by analysing the site condition and giving the community various options in which reconstruction can be spatially implemented. It has encouraged community participation in decision making by organising workshops as a platform for discussing pros and cons of different designs with planners and government bodies as well.

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Chapter 8. Discussion Conclusion

and

From the above three case studies, it has been found that the impact of earthquake is severe in the core areas due to the various vulnerability causing factors adopted in building construction, modification and usage. Delay in government aid and urgency of housing solution have compelled neighbourhood to initiate grassroots reconstruction.

It also highlighted how different communities peruse social resilience suitable to the particular context. The study of social resilience by the traditional communities revealed two broad categories of forces: endogenous forces and exogenous forces that partly played hindering role while partly fostered the efforts. These endogenous forces comprised of social, physical, cultural and economic aspects within the community and also identifies community and the community leaders as the key players. Similarly, the exogenous factors such as legal and political issues appeared as a challenging factor in the resilience process which can potentially be overcome by external forces such as the government, the aid organisations and NGOs.

8.1 Endogenous Forces fostering social resilience Nature, man and man-made urban ensembles are the three major attributes under which there are numerous other factors and forces which collectively forms the settlement. These intertwined aspects of settlements instigated and nurtured social resilience after the earthquake in the case studies. The core area of Kathmandu valley is inhabited by Newars, an ethnic group, who are in many ways bonded by the sociocultural aspects. Their traditional practices, either in the form of organising and participating in religious festivals or communal feasts, develops affinity and affection within the community members. Similarly, such practice of organising and participating in religious processions that needs team effort and collaboration, developed participatory capacity in these communities. Such sense of belonging to a group and contributing through team spirit for communal benefit is embedded in these traditional societies. Thus after the earthquake, such practices effortlessly emerged in almost all of the cases under the headship of community leader.

Solnit (2009) mentions in her book ‘A Paradise built in hell’ that, “… the very concept of society rests on the idea of networks of affinity and affection and the freestanding individual exists largely as an outcast or exile...” The communities of core area were also grounded on these ideas where the formers are enrolled in various new and old social organisations which they called Guthis. Reflecting the preference of Newari communities of united social life, these unique social organisations strengthened the bonding within the communities of same caste as demonstrated in the case of Maharjans

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of Pilachhen. Such tradition of forming common interest groups with collective responsibilities and privileges stimulated social resilience by forming groups interested in collaborated reconstruction. It also developed the practice of helping others in need, volunteering and also donating (for sustaining culture and self-satisfaction in the past).

These were the assets of the society that drive the wheel of social resilience in the past and even in present such tradition nurtures the seeds of resilience. On the other hand, these Guthis have their own rules, regulations and taboos that holds more value to the communities then any law set by the state. Any form of negative resistance by individuals led to social boycott from the community. Such guiding principles instigates the community to develop resonating voices and disregard self-centred objectives.

Limitation of resources was one prominent challenge encountered by these economically under privileged communities of core area. The ability to cope with such limitations by pooling the available resources (both financial as well as material) to collectively overcome the situation was a vital social asset. Such coping capacity of the community either in the form of volunteering labour or reusing building materials for overcoming the economic constrains reflected the sensibility of the community that fostered social resilience.

Another endogenous force that promoted resilience was the active involvement of the community in collective decision making and shaping of the process and outcome of resilience. It has been proven with practical examples that inclusion of affected communities determine the success of project. Whereas an ill designed participatory approach that does not involve vulnerable groups often brings undesirable outcomes.

Thus the ability of the community to make a deciding role on selecting members from within the community for the designated task required for leading, managing and executing the project is another asset. In Kilagal it was the community in totality who decided to approach the community leader and jointly submit their land ownership papers to the government and seek its help. The selection of the best options to suite the need of the community is also on the hands of the communities. However to assure good results of participation, communities should be well informed and should adequately be empowered.

As community tends to be vulnerable, the role of community leaders becomes more prominent in reverberating the voice of the community and giving them the direction.

In fact, not all members of the community are equally able or knowledgeable about the means and modes of reconstruction. They rarely have the necessary contacts that would lead to a platform where their voice is heard or where aids are probable to be provided.

At such situation, community leader with his instant response, farsightedness, convincing ability and leadership drives the collaborative effort towards the trajectory of success. The ability of such leaders to speak in informal language with the community to develop internal bond and formal language with the government and aid organisations to develop bridging and linking bonds, as observed in the case of Kilagal and Pilachhen, is extremely important. With the explanations, examples and a lot of convincing community leaders such as Ramesh Maharjan (Pilachhen), Krishna Sadan 77

Suwal (Kaminani) and Macha Raja Maharjan (Kilagal) originates collective voice from the community. They used their networks to bring technical, financial, political or managerial help to the project. It is also possible that such leader are not from the society itself but a visionary with some sort of place attachment like in the case of Pilachhen. In either way, community leaders have been proven as the most important force to shape social resilience.

8.2 Endogenous forces hindering social resilience Reconstruction encounters various challenges that depends on numerous aspects such as socio-cultural, religious, economic, environmental and political. Settlements in core area have history as old as 300 years and even more. The complex composition of adjoined buildings assembled around open spaces which are accessed by pedestrians and two wheelers only through narrow alleys and underpass connectors made reconstruction difficult to peruse at individual level. Dismantling the damaged buildings were a challenge in itself as it would risk pulling down adjacent neighbouring buildings because of shared structural members. Debris management without obstructing flow in narrow lanes was another problem that the community managed. Bringing construction materials or big construction instruments in these complex urban tissue was also stimulating. As a result of inheritance of property from ancestors and fragmentation for equal division of these properties, families were living in buildings that exerted footprint as small as 9m2 as in the case of Kilagal. These houses as was one big traditional styled building in the past, even today shared common structural elements such as walls, foundation and even door and windows in several cases. Similarly there were cases where these buildings were modified through vertical incremental to fulfil the spatial needs. These were obviously not in alliance to the prevailing building byelaws of the municipality. Such physio-spatial features of the traditional settlements have been a cause for opting collaborated approach for reconstruction and also been a major challenge since community wanted to have a better spatial quality as an outcome of their joint effort.

Inheritance is a traditional practice in Nepalese society that has led to multiple ownership of properties based on verbal agreement. There are also cases where properties are divided in oral basis and inhabitant do not possess paper as a proof of his ownership. Many of the lands were found unregistered, yet were being fully exercised and including public open spaces which were intentionally-unintentionally being encroached as private space. Such instances of patrimony had been functioning quite well in the past until the state enforced law that required submission of legal ownership documents for building permit and acquiring loans. Housing is an investment of lifetime saving. Construction without considering the prevalent law would always risk the owners of demolition of their houses by the government any time in future. Thus there exits friction between inheritance, subdivision of properties and law. Such legal formalities which are not in alliance with the cultural practice of the community has

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created a hurdle in the social resilience. Some of these issues were realised before the commencement of the project as in Kaminani and also in Kilagal while few revealed in the actual implementation stage during the process of obtaining municipal permit for reconstruction as in the case of Pilachhen. This has been a reason for seeking governments aid by handing over the landownership paper in Kilagal and letting government come up with the suitable solution. For other cases as in Kaminani this has been one of the major cause of delay in the commencement of actual ground implementation. In Pilachhen as the problem appeared in course of implementation, it had to deviate from the preconceived phase wise planning and prolonged the reconstruction.

The communities residing though may appear homogeneous at first glance due to religious and cultural affiliation but these are highly heterogeneous with differing individualistic views and perceptions. There are several issues within these community that dispirits collaborated efforts. Many of the affiliates of the community are the member of extended family that have nucleated because of big and small family issues regarding division of household works and inherited property. As a result there prevails sourness in their relationships which makes co-working for common benefit a tough nut to crack. Several interaction with the communities during the process of data collection in Kaminani and Kilagal revealed the fact that community find working with non-related people easier than working with their own so called relatives.

Solnit compares human behaviour after disaster with the reset of machines to original settings after the power outage. She insists that disasters have positive impact on the society by creating ‘temporary utopia’ of transformed human nature and society reflected by ‘altruism’ and ‘mutual aid’ and explains how past dissimilarities evaporates after disaster resets the human behaviour (Solnit, 2009). Indeed, the Newari community showed no different reflex action than that explained by Solnit. However, what was also as loud as these positivity of the society was the ‘temporary’ nature of such utopian situation. As resilience of permanent nature took longer time, communities were often resumed to previous mode of normality. This meant that the focus was again shifted to personal issues. In the reviewed cases, many people were found unconvinced by the idea of collaborated reconstruction. This was partly because of people’s own preference of unwillingness in collaboration in spite of knowing how vital their participation may be to the economically underprivileged minorities. Whereas partly it was because of inability of the proposal to address the issues of these group of people as well. This marks the fading nature of temporary liberation where the individuals merge and the societal needs develop the sense of ‘belonging and unity rarely achieved under normal circumstances’ that Solnit talks in reflection to Fritz’s original idea (Solnit, 2009).

Similarly, most of the old generation of the community are not open to new form of changes even if it is for their own betterment and economic sustainability. Convincing these culture bounded older generation was a challenge observed in all the cases.

However, as these communities were guided by the rules set by the society itself many agreed also with the fear of being socially boycotted. Such clinging with outdated beliefs

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and resistance to change for betterment is a major hindrance in social resilience that not only prolongs the procedure but also close the possibilities of bouncing forward.

The core areas are physically and environmentally degraded due to random modification and vertical expansion. Today, only economically deprived people reside in such areas. These are either the poorest brother of the family who cannot afford expensive bungalow on the suburbs or the poor renters mostly belonging to informal sectors who came in replacement of the rich brothers who have chosen to migrate outside. These poor community lacked money to maintain their houses prior to earthquake so reconstructing them from scratch is beyond their ability. The main source of income for residents of core area are either through agriculture, business, labour or collecting rental charges all of which are profoundly laden by earthquake.

Further, there is no practice of insurance. Minor saving practices and cooperative does not suffice the financial need of reconstruction. In some cases, the community had property beside their destructed houses which was in the form of agricultural land.

These were the basis of their economic sustainability and so they were not in position to sell their land to acquire the money needed for reconstruction. In other cases like Kaminani, inhabitants are daily wage earners who sustain their lives by working as Mason, carpenters, etc. On top of this the government forwarded its own reasoning of budgetary constraints and priorities that devoid it from investing in settlement reconstruction. Further, the grant they are providing is insufficient, tedious and complicated in many ways. Similarly the Guthis, which were perceived to provide relief for the post disaster scenario through its reserved fixed and mobile assets, didn’t play a prominent role in aiding the process financially. These organisations were more dedicated in conducting religious activities and organising feasts rather than helping the fellow member or his community in reconstruction. While on one hand traditions promoted participatory capacity, socio-cultural constrain limited the coping capacity of the organisations. Thus economic constrain is the major hindering endogenous force that has compelled resilience to rely on charity and donation.

8.3 Exogenous forces fostering Social Resilience “People in disaster zone temporarily function by entirely different rules but even those far away often becomes generous with gifts of time, goods and money”- Samuel Prince (Solnit, 2009) As important as the endogenous forces, exogenous forces such as aid providing agencies played a vital role in raising social resilience. Lack of sufficient finance was observed as one of the primary cause of halt in the resilience process and initiation of project.

Without proper source of money and appropriate financial modalities, it is difficult for the community to visualise the success of the idea. Thus contribution of individual donors and aid agencies provides considerable impact in shaping social resilience. Such donations strengthens the will of communities towards possibility of achieving the resilience as was demonstrated in the case of Pilachhen. Similarly donations collected 80

in big and small scale from crowd funding and other donations increases the selfconfidence of the community as they would have a sharing shoulder to bear the financial burden of resilience. In the same way, the acts of volunteer labour in rebuilding and donations of construction materials (as seen in Pilachhen) vividly demonstrated how communities outside the disaster impacted settlements extend their generous aid to foster the attempts of resilience.

Similarly, as the indigenous knowledge of vernaculars was found disappearing among the community and acquiring building permit needed submission of designs and drawings to the municipality, the technical aid providing agencies appeared as an important exogenous fostering force. In the three case studies, these technical experts analysed the post disaster condition of the neighbourhood by developing maps and photographs that demonstrated how the earthquake has impacted the houses and changed the spatial use of the buildings and the surrounding open spaces. Moreover, the analysis also highlighted the issues of plot size and frontage being extremely small, the changing skyline of the neighbourhood and incremental construction practises that stirred vulnerability in the whole neighbourhood. These analysis helped in developing parameters for improvisation of pre-disaster conditions. In case of Kaminani, these agencies organised several workshops were community members were encouraged to put forward their spatial needs. Their requirements were translated in the form of plans and which were frequently modified and developed as per the feedbacks of the community. Such participatory approach insured the inclusion of all the inhabitants without any exclusion. With the requirement set by the community and new and innovative designs options suggested by the experts the pre disaster condition was assured to be enhanced. The decision making right was given to the community itself.

Beside the architectural drawings and three dimensional visuals, technical aid agencies such as CE in case of Pilachhen also did structural drawings and analysis to assure stability. These visual translation of design also formed the basis for approaching for financial aids from government and other interested donor.

Likewise, NGOs are another fostering force outside the community that plays the role of facilitator between different stakeholders such as donor agencies, aid agencies, government and the community. NGOs such as Maya Foundation took the responsibility of liaising the technical and financial help in a more organised and systematic way.

8.4 Exogenous forces hindering social resilience The role of the state is prominent not just in top down approaches adopted for reconstruction but it also plays significant part in creating environment for grassroots as well. As per government’s perspective, the support of government to communities in the form of grants distributed in trenches serves dual purpose of providing financial subsidy as well as non-repetition of past vulnerabilities by cross checking the implementation of building codes and bye laws. From vulnerability point of view, this may appear to be positive initiatives but the government has still not been able to 81

prepare bye laws that specifically addresses the issues of traditional settlement of core areas. As a result, there lacks an overall vision for the development of the respective municipality. In case of Kilagal, government itself proposes for an urban regeneration that disregards the traditional settlement pattern and neighbourhood composition with an aim to improve the living environment of the degenerated core area. On the other hand, in case of Kaminani, the proposed plan was highly criticised for not addressing the traditional settlement characteristics to the fullest. Such dual behaviour from government side highly discourages the social resilience and demonstrates ambiguous law. Besides, the revised byelaw does not consider the existing complications of core areas. Rather it emphasizes on structural stability and concepts of wider streets, more open spaces and transparency with road. Yet, it mentions new concepts such as house pooling for promoting community driven reconstruction but has no laws or policies defining the concept in detail. Such notions should be made familiar to the people by examples supported by policies so as not to confuse communities in general.

Furthermore, willingness of government to take over the construction on its own hand (like in the case of Kilagal) rather prolongs the procedure due to administrative reasons.

Acceptance of proposal of community to expropriate their land by the government may appear as a fostering act to the community in the beginning but in long run communities will realise the inverse effect of such land acquisition that may lead to exclusion of minorities and loss of the ownership. To add on it, the political formulation and selection of public representative may also give new shape to the project. There have been many examples in the past where a party in power starts a project which gets halted in the middle when new another party comes in power as a ruling party. This kind of delays induce individual resilience which may further recreate vulnerability as explained by Sapountzaki (2014). Such individualistic approaches which are focused on self-priorities and self-capabilities limits the scope of improvement in wider urban structure.

Likewise, the political situation of Nepal is very unstable. There is high instances of corruption and fraud. People at power appoints and deploys people at different administrative levels based on their contact rather than capabilities. There is lack of local representative in the parliament at the moment. Similarly the mayor of the city is also selected by the ministry and not the people. Because of the absence of local representative, local presumes that their efforts of social resilience is rarely appreciated. They also believe that people at power do not understand the sentiments of local as they don’t belong to the same culture or community. This has been the coherent voice of all the communities studied for this research.

Beside this, acquiring grants is another complicated and long procedure. The provision of soft loans at 2% interest rate for up to $25000 is also a hollow aid as the banks do not accept property without road access as collaterals. Thus communities with most of the property accessed by underpass alleys and courtyards are regarded ineligible for the soft loans by the banks. Government should have considered this issues as well while instructing banks for loan provision for reconstruction as except for the houses along 82

the street all other houses have same problem of access and are hence deprived of this facilitation. Issues like these have been major discouragement to community initiatives.

Moreover, even for those international donor agencies and individual contributors, the government had made it a compulsion to donate money via Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund rather than to any individual’s account. Due to corruption and people’s distrust in government, communities claim that many financial aid could not reach the desired hands because of this intervention of government. Though the underlying motive of the government is to centralise the fund collected and distribute as per the results of need assessments and set of priorities, such legal formalities set by government have demotivated the donors. Consequently, loss of financial push towards community efforts have delayed the overall positive resilience.

Similarly, government seemed to have issues with the involvement of NGOs and INGOs. There were voices from government and communities that directed how communities were least benefitted by NGOs and INGOs who focused more on paperwork then implementation of the project. This has been a reason for not wanting to involve NGOs/INGOs in social resilience in case of Kilagal. Likewise, even though the technical aid providing agencies do not take consultation fees directly from the community and works voluntarily, a huge part of money is invested for research of existing scenario and designing. It can be said that designing has been used as a manipulating and advocating tool of their vision or the vision guided by the leaders. In the case of Pilachhen, the technical aid providing agency translated the vision of community leader of developing the neighbourhood as touristic cultural hub. It merely included the actual spatial need of the people of that neighbourhood or their way of life. Thus the needs of the inhabitants were less prioritised compared to the aspiration of the leader. Though community may be benefitted by the success of the project, the project itself might not be how the community wanted to bounce better. On top of this, due to volunteering and need for mass production, people are not consulted for the design of their own houses.

Further aid agencies are concerned about preparation of drawings but they seemed least concern regarding the actual implementation of the project or site supervision. The case was more or less similar in Kilagal as well. Here the community were shown analysis of the area that convinced them the necessity to collaborate and also highlighted the buildings not constructed in alliance with the existing byelaws. They were given three options to choose from but for the preparation of the very options no survey was conducted or ant platform was created where communities and aid agencies could discuss together the need of the community and how it can be included in the new proposals. Thus form of non-participatory technical aid may hinder the resilience when people start realising what they have staked.

8.5 Consequence of Social Development Dynamics

Resilience

Manifestations

on

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According to Clausen (1978), the focus of social resilience should take in account not just the social change as a result of disaster but also understand the underlying non disastrous change. Settlements in core area was already going through physical, social, cultural and economic transformation prior to earthquake. The traditional constructional technology was losing its faith and becoming less popular compared to modern RCC framed structures. Old buildings were being subdivided in course of being inherited by brothers and as a result plots were as small as few square meters. Similarly traditional buildings were modified without engineer consultation to add extra floor or convert projected balconies to habitable rooms to suffice the need for space. Technology was mixed with mud and brick structure (flexible structure) in lower floors and concrete and steel extension (rigid structure) in additional floors. The lack of byelaws to address the context, emerging spatial needs and economic constraints encouraged people to preferably ignore the bye laws. Open spaces were encroached for private use such as parking, storing water containers and debris of demolished buildings.

Similarly families were nucleated and often sourness in relations prevailed. Locals were migrating out while poor renters with less place attachment were moving in. The instances of residual patrimony devoid of interest was leading to under maintained houses that created blight. Members of local Guthis were scattered and their function limited to religious celebrations and organising feasts only. However festivals still brought people together and consolidated the society with participation in processions.

Respectively renting was emerging as new source of economy. Tourism is flourishing in areas close to world heritage sites. Thus potentials of such areas as touristic as well as business centre is growing. Traditionally ground floors were reserved for economic purposes such as shops and workshops. However, in many parts of the core areas economic activities are taking over residential use of buildings in upper storeys as well.

Reconstruction is a context specific task that is in itself very diverse in nature and hence requires responses which are dynamic yet meaningful. Solnit remarks the ‘disruptive power of disaster’ as an opportunity of improvisation where the ‘old orders’ collapses and extraordinary window into social desire and possibilities opens up (Solnit,2009). In the three cases that were researched here, the post-earthquake social resilience further accelerate the transformation trajectory of built forms. It completely disregarded the traditional construction technology and use of local resilient materials such as timber joists and mud mortars. 90% of the people of Kilagal, 80% in Kaminani and 100% in Pilachhen (M R Maharjan 2017; K Suwal 2017; R Maharjan 2017, personal conversation, April) have agreed with the proposed modern technology for reconstruction as suggested by technical aid proving experts and preferred by the community themselves.

They seemed to be convinced that such modern technology would decrease the vulnerability persistent in existing scenario and also assure structural stability.

Similarly, in terms of existing sequence of open spaces, the community of Kilagal willingly agreed to give away the original fabric offered by the house pooling concept.

In contradiction to this, the communities of Kaminani and Pilachhen have tried to retain 84

the originality of the space by following existing footprints and courtyards. The agreement of the community to such proposal seemed primarily is due to security of original ownership of the property though it has also, to large extent, conserved the characteristics of heritage settlements. What has been emphasised in these manifestation of resilience is the traditional outlook and footprint. It is indeed important to preserve the vernacular aesthetics and traditional characteristics of a settlement but what is more crucial to realise is that these composition of mass and void are intertwined physical and socio-cultural entity. Hence it is as important to address the current socio-spatial needs of the community while retaining or modifying such spatial features. In ability to do so may induce self-initiated modifications that may recreate pre-existing vulnerabilities. What would have been equally important was to integrate the resilient characteristics of built form and spatial planning that has been developed over the years as a learning exercise from repetitive disaster experience of the past.

Likewise the pre-existing migration trend is targeted to be reversed by the resilience approach through reestablishment of local migrants by increasing pull factors and decreasing the push factors. The otherwise dilapidating living environment is also envisioned to be improved by clustering of dispersed open spaces to form a more appropriate open space in cases like Kilagal. Similarly the economic trajectories of core areas is further transcended by realisation of its potential as an economic or touristic hub and proposing new functions to commodify the cultural assets and heritage characteristics of built forms and open spaces. Though the perception differs as per the understanding and desire of community, each of the three cases looks at economic sustainability as the most important aspect of resilience.

The adjoining risk that comes along with the perceived economisation and commodification is the threat of gentrification. With too much inclination towards economic development, the neighbourhood bears risk of being transformed to a totally commercial area. With the improvement of current environmental and physical status and inclusion of mixed uses the value of property will surely rise. Such increased rental value will lure economically poor locals to sell their property to business developer and migrate to another place. Similarly as most of the locals are poor, they may not be able to repay the land and hence after the end of loan period they may permanently be displaced from their own locality. Though such phenomenon may practically appear to be rational, but to a city that is known for its culture and heritage, such displacement risks wiping away the identity of the place. As the locals are the one sustaining the intangible aspects of the tangible heritage that keeps the identity of the place and also create basis of tourism, all these will slowly be disappear in the process of transforming the area to ‘cultural business site’. This puts cultural identity, which is also the foundation of social resilience developed through traditional practices, again at stake.

Similarly, the reviewed cases demonstrated high influence of advocacy in shaping the resilience. Reconstruction has always been criticized for considering the requirements of implementers rather than needs and aspiration of the affected communities. Such 85

possibilities though less prominent in community driven reconstruction process compared to strict top down approach, it is not invalid. Such reconstruction that are based on advocacy and ‘pseudo’ participation, rather than the actual aspiration of communities may result in immediate acceptance of proposal, whereas in long run, it may not fit the actual life style of the community. This is risky for the long term sustainability of projects. This subject to self-modification of built forms that again contributes to vulnerability and create ‘bounce back but degrade’ scenario.

8.6 Recommendations for building and sustaining social resilience In this research, the traditional settlements of Kathmandu valley, has been analysed as an urban settlement which is in transitional phase between customary and modernity.

The cultural and religious practices of the inhabitants as an inherent practice have enriched the social asset by the strengthening of the internal bonds based on kinship, ethnicity and localness. Similarly it has also developed the qualities of mutual aid, solidarity and altruism which is the foundation of social resilience. Apart from this, participatory capacity of the communities was also embedded through the practice of enrolment in guthis as an organisation that promotes leadership, teamwork and inclusiveness of minorities. Such characteristic features of traditional settlements was the reflection of social resilience manifestations that was embedded in these socioculturally rich settlements. At an occurrence of disaster in the form of earthquake, such manifestations emerged out of its cocoon as a need of time. These formed the endogenous fostering forces that accelerated the social resilience.

As vivid as the cultural richness was the economic backwardness of these communities.

Such economic hurdle can be overcome by the help of bridging links of the community with the external agents such as government, NGOs and aid agencies. The endogenous capacity of the community to cope with the limitations of resources by pooling of the financial and human resource can further be enriched by the fostering forces outside the community. These fostering forces if collaborate with the local actors can enhance the urban social resilience by not completely interfering the process but playing the role of facilitator. Community participation, community empowerment, effective communication among stakeholders, community culture and beliefs, support from local government are identified as important aspects of social resilience. Following are the few recommendations that incorporates these discourses for promoting social resilience in an integrated way: i. Individual should respond above personal interest and think for the benefit of overall community. For this communal feeling is important which can be promoted by social interactions and developing community culture. In the context of traditional settlements of Kathmandu, since such culture are already embedded, continuation of such practices is important, Similarly, young generations and new

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members of community should be encouraged to participate by updating outdated traditions in better ways. ii.

The capacity building of the community should be enhanced by conducting occasional trainings and awareness programmes where importance and measures of developing adaptive, coping and participative capacities of the community are demonstrated. iii.

The coping capacity can be enhanced by integration of indigenous and scientific knowledge to improvise the traditional construction technology. In this way local expertise will be utilised as well as quality will be assured. Similarly, existing reusable resources can also enhance this capacity and such resources can be pooled for community benefit as well. iv.

Communities should be economically empowered by developing the habit of saving or insurance for unforeseen disasters. The already existing Guthis can be revived for such assurance by cooperative saving and investments beside the savings reserved for cultural sustainability. The concept of volunteering and donations for community benefit can hence be integrated as part of daily life that waters the seed of resilience for future disasters. v. Community participation is a core of social resilience. The economically deprived and socially underprivileged groups should be uplifted while pooling resources and their participation in decision-making should be top priority. Thus all the members of the community should develop mutual aid and solidarity irrespective of social, cultural or economic biasness. vi. Communities should grasp the reconstruction as an opportunity for improving the pre-disaster situation physically, socially and economically. They should be open to new concepts and ideas whereas the essence of place identity should not be forgotten. Thus too much clanging with old outdated traditions needs to be redefined by new perspectives for improvisation. vii.

The traditional settlements like that of Kathmandu has history of hundreds of years and hence the population it was catering and the socio-cultural and economic environment have undergone huge transformation. Resilience must grasp the opportunity to improvise features that does not meet the current necessity. At the same time it should duly respect the original characteristics that carries the identity of the settlement and also basis of economic sustainability. viii.

Government should develop a proper vision of city development that incorporates the complexities of core areas in its byelaws. Policies should be developed without much delay understanding the sensitivity of the issue. In order not to repeat the pre disaster vulnerability, careful observation should be done for proper implementation of the updated building codes and such building codes must not only emphasise modern construction practice but also suggest ways of improvising traditional construction techniques contextual to the traditional urban setting for better earthquake resilience. ix.

Government should encourage collaborative efforts initiated by community by providing subsidies, easy facilitation for obtaining the soft loans for longer duration and create environment for economic sustainability through entrepreneurship 87

x.

xi.

xii.

training and micro-financing. In this way, the communities can repay the loans required for reconstruction themselves and do not have to rely on charities from donor agencies. Furthermore, as an encouragement it can also facilitate the obtaining of building permit by giving priority in processing. Community based organisations should be formed with involvement of community leaders who speak both formal as well as informal language with the government and locals respectively should be involved in community based organisation. In this way it can facilitate resilience and enhance coping and participative capacities.

Government should not be directly involved in the reconstruction as it has multiple disadvantages. Firstly, their involvement prolongs the overall process due to administrative complication. Secondly, it may raise question by other communities with similar impacts of disaster. And thirdly and most importantly, it makes the communities rather dependent than resilient in future hazards. Besides community should also be aware of the consequences of expropriation while approaching government.

Different local and international aid agencies forward their generous help to communities in their resilience efforts. Proper collaboration between such aid agencies, government and the endogenous forces such as community leadership is vital for successful resilience. These external forces must act as a facilitator in enhancing the capacity of the community rather than doing everything by itself with minimum community involvement. In other words exogenous forces must lead by stepping back.

For the effective implementation of the community initiated projects (an outcome of social resilience), public private partnership should be promoted. Committees for Project Facilitation and coordination and Project Implementation can be formed. By involving representatives of government sectors in facilitation and coordination committee and local residents in implementation committee both public sector as well as private sector can collaborate and assure easy and effective implementation.

8.7 Recommendation for further research: This research is conducted in limited time and incorporates the views of limited informants. The information and remarks are based on the personal perspective of the researcher and in no ways can be generalise. The project it reviewed are also either in ongoing stage or in the proposal stage. Thus follow up of the projects and its changing dynamics can be researched in future so as to measure the real impact of the social resilience in different aspects of the community. Since the byelaws specifically for core areas are still under preparation and have not yet been officially published, critically evaluation of it can be further researched. Similarly, other cases of social resilience situated in peri urban and rural parts of Nepal can be investigated to analyse social resilience in diverse context and communities.

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Master’s Thesis file

Students: Dipika Pradhan Title: Rebuilding upon Social Resilience: Post-Earthquake Reconstruction Challenges, Opportunities & Ways Forward in Kathmandu Valley

English title: Rebuilding upon Social Resilience: Post-Earthquake Reconstruction Challenges, Opportunities & Ways Forward in Kathmandu Valley UDC: Content in brief: On Saturday, 25th April 2015 at 11:56 local time, Nepal experienced one of its most disastrous earthquake of magnitude 7.8 with its epicentre located in a village called Barpark, in Gorkha district. Through one perspective, the earthquake and its recurring aftershocks bear a resemblance to a ‘curse’ that has pushed the developing notion of the country further backward through its physical, social and economic impact. However looking from a more positive lens, this situation can be turned into an opportunity to reconstruct in a better and more resilient way to minimise the extent of such disaster in future.

Sufficient literature in the field of post disaster recovery, reconstruction and resilience as well as disaster resilient characteristics of the traditional settlement planning of Kathmandu valley exists. However social resilience in the context of Newari settlement in the core areas of Kathmandu valley have not yet been explored much. Traditional urban core of Kathmandu valley are physical designed considering sustainable and disaster responsive features and socio-culturally shaped by religious practices that promotes collaborated community participation. It is hypothesised that these physiocultural aspect forms good foundation for grassroots initiatives and collaborative reconstruction approach. With legislative and financial support from concerned authorities, such bottom up approaches can transcend towards a development trajectory that leads to physical as well as social resilience against any susceptible future hazards.

The central research question is:

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  

To what extent has social resilience, built upon the traditional socio-cultural practices of traditional Newari settlement of Kathmandu, emerged after the earthquake?

How is such resilience responding to the traditional spatial features of these settlements?

What are the challenges that is hindering the social resilience and what has the government and other aid organisations done so far to foster such attempts with an eye towards addressing local chronic vulnerabilities?

This thesis explores the characteristics of these traditional towns in terms of its earthquake responsiveness and social resilience as well as its present day relevance.

With the help of three case studies of emerging reconstruction practices in core area of Lalitpur, Bhaktapur and Kathmandu and literature reviews, the paper examines deeply intertwined physical, socio-cultural and economic aspects of these traditional settlements and investigates different approaches of social resilience. It hence inspects the challenges in the process and the hindering and fostering role played by different stakeholders as endogenous and exogenous forces. The study also evaluates the spatial implication of social resilience and how it has addressed the development dynamics of such traditional settlements which are on verge of modernisation. Based on these analysis, this empirical research proposes recommendations for the stakeholders to build and sustain social resilience through capacity development of community and integrated efforts of internal and external key actors.

(Title of the article: Rebuilding upon Social Resilience: Post-Earthquake Reconstruction Challenges, Opportunities & Ways Forward in Kathmandu Valley) (English translation: Rebuilding upon Social Resilience: Post-Earthquake Reconstruction Challenges, Opportunities & Ways Forward in Kathmandu Valley)

Thesis submitted to obtain the degree of Master in Engineering: Human Settlements Supervisor(s): Prof. Bruno De Meulder Prof. Viviana d’Auria Assessors: Angeliki Paidakaki (Reader) Prof. Ajay Chandra Lal (Local Reader)

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