Built Environment

Legal

The legal and political landscape of the CBD is messy, convoluted, and inefficient. When it comes to planning and development, the multitude of institutions and the resulting patchwork of jurisdictions create so much red tape that implementation is often derailed. Built environment professionals, both public and private, describe the almost impossible burden of executing projects, from improving the sidewalk in front of a business to significant developments. The inability to follow the formal processes results in “complementary informality” (Altrock 2012, p. 176), as residents do things by themselves outside the regulatory process.

One could write books detailing the intricacies that the diagrams represent. For example, the municipal corporation is responsible for nearly all permitting. If they feel like they don’t have the required skill set to analyze a project’s complexity to code accurately, then they may require the applicant to get approval from another regulatory body. Further, if regulation is broken, such as a house built on a lot marked as rice patty, then Town and Country Planning has the police pursue a criminal investigation. However, due to the scope of this project, Imagine Panaji and the CCP will remain the primary agencies in this report.

Land Use

The land use that characterizes the East CBD is a result of diverse socio-economic activities performed in the city. By analyzing land use, we have gained an understanding of those using the space and identified the prevailing services present in the area. The CBD contains the majority of the city’s government offices and commercial buildings.

1974

2021

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING ACT

the role of town and country planning is developed under that law.

REGIONAL PLAN GOA

directed to the entire state of Goa

2021

OUTLINE DEVELOPMENT PLAN

broadly indicates how the land in the planning area is proposed to be used

2041

REVISED CITY DEVELOPMENT PLAN

aims to identify an integrated solution to challenges facing the city

Fig. C.8: Hierarchy of Relevant Planning Laws The CBD commercial zones are composed of predominantly mixed-use buildings that consist of smaller-scale retail stores on the first floor with upper floors occupied by residential, hotel, education, and larger-scale commercial. Studying the history of the buildings in the CBD informed us that many single-story, historically Portuguese buildings had been replaced in favor of large scale, mixed-use, and multi-story developments.

Our methods and observations demonstrated that casinos have an undeniable impact on the concentration of commercial and tourism-related activities, with many smaller-scale tourism businesses positioning themselves along the periphery of the casino dominated waterfront.

Building Typology

After the land use, we decided that it was also essential to understand how the buildings are working. Most of the buildings in the CBD have diverse uses. One of the most common typologies that we can find is with commercial uses in the first level and residential in the upper levels. In the buildings surrounding the park, we can find more diversity in the uses.

Fig. C.9: Cross Section of Jardim Garcia D’Orta Fig. C.10: Land Use of East CBD

LAND USE

Commercial Institutional Mixed use Religious Residential