Project
statement : PLM[1] Policy evaluation and conclusion chapters
: Case Study of
Under-utilized Spaces in Bangkok, Thailand
PhD
Dissertation entitled: The Development of Public Land Management Policy for Under-utilized Space
in Bangkok, Thailand.
Purpose
It attempts to
evaluate the proposed policy guideline for PLM for Bangkok, by collecting the
comments and experiences gained from experts and researchers in the areas of
policy analysis, environmental planning in the US. The proposed PLM policy
guideline should be generalized and be applied for other cities in order to
resolve the conflicts of urban land utilization.
The
overall study objectives
The dissertation
research is aimed to cover the problems inventory, the integrated policy
analysis and offer the strategies to deal with the urban re-development of the
under-utilized spaces in Bangkok Metropolitan area. The project is based on the
analysis on decision-making process with a combination of the knowledge and
attention in integrated approach and “multiplism” in urban management. The
study is expected:
1.
To understand the existing urban land management policy in public agencies.
2.
To identify and categorize existing public own under-utilized spaces.
3.
To describe the factors, criteria, and motivation on the use of land.
4.
To explore, describe, and evaluate the alternatives of PLM (public land
management) policy and the possibilities of conflicts and constraints by
applying to the case of Bangkok.
-
The
case studies are decided to the 3 major public land owner organizations as the
followings;
o
The
Treasury Department, Ministry of Finance (TRD)
o
The
State Railway of Thailand (SRT)
o
The
Expressway and Rapid Transit Authority (ETA)
5.
To recommend, formulate, and generalize PLM policy guideline for under-utilized
space.
Components
of dissertation and the relationship to the Lecture/Research program
The major issues of
the study are the policy analysis of administrative decision-making in the
responsible organizations, the issue of existing situation of public own
under-utilized/void space, and the issue of utilization of appropriated public
activities on those voids. The study will aim to assess the decision-making
process of utilization of the under-utilized space, and offer the
systematically and holistically approaches for urban land management especially
for the project owner agencies and Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA)
and all other involved actors; affecting various aspects of city environment
and communities. The integrated approaches would make it necessary to perhaps
accommodate the alternative societal public activities into the space and to
formulate organizations strategies and practical urban renewal public policy
scheme. The factors respond to past, present and future of this urban
environment study are the legal issue, demographic variations and district
inhabitants needs, economic development of the city, national development plan
and the real needs of the population which will be taken in account and be
iterated in the study.
The components of
the dissertation have been listed as in the full proposal
[http://pioneer.chula.ac.th/~aariya/void/]. As shown in the schedule below, the
first 7 chapters will be completed in prior to the tentative schedule for
departure in August 2003. The last chapter; chapter 8 ; is aimed to be in the
Fulbright-TRF Lecture/Research fellowship program. It will be expected to be
composed as the followings;
The 8th chapter
research component
Chapter
8 -Conclusions / Implications
8.1
Summary of findings
8.2
Possible conflict / constraint of the alternatives
8.3
Expected benefits of the alternatives
8.4 Conclusion and
recommendations
- Strategies plans for development / recommendations
8.5 Limitation of the study and
directions for future research
This part of
dissertation is a very importance part of the research, which will be expected
to result more than a solution for decision-making in utilizing by integration
of several approaches in urban land management. Once the result from
descriptive policy analysis of the past policies, the multivariate analysis
results the possible public activities, then the study will provide the
prospective policy analysis techniques with management model for all actors in
development. The research will be required to achieve sustainability for future
generation within the urban environment oriented policy framework. The study is
possible to prove that the public land utilization policy will be able to
delight the urban built environment and infrastructure network with another
layer of lively public activities and make the city more livable and financial
affordable.
The US host
institution should be an academic institute with research unit who is eligible
to facilitate researches and studies related to urban affairs. At least the
most significance 2 areas of study; Urban Planning/Management and Political
Science/Public Administration; should be focused in the institute. The more
specific issues such as Vacant Land Utilization/Management and Policy
Study/Analysis should be in their interest. Referring to the Fulbright-TRF
research proposal, the candidate plans to do both research and lecture in the
host institution.
Lecture
program and contribution to host institution
Public
land management (PLM) is defined as the management procedure that dues with
public own plots of land. Most of public land has been legally utilized for
public purposes. The public organizations in this research will be government,
state, and state-enterprise. PLM is defined as an aspect in public policy because
of its characteristic. PLM has been implemented by government and affected to
citizens. The candidate plans to give lectures synchronously with the
researches in the host institute.
The
lectures will cover these following issues;
1.
Country and situation report on PLM for under-utilized spaces
in Bangkok, Thailand.
- In 2002, BMA by Policy and Planning Department (PPD)
introduced the Green Space Master Plan for Bangkok (with consultation from
Kasetsatr University). This plan has aimed to gain more green space to reach
the target average ratio of 4.968 sq.m./capita within 25 years phasing. The
plan has looked for the vacant and under utilized space under both public and
private ownership, especially the land under the elevated expressway/bridge,
ROW of main transportation route, and existing undeveloped green area. Using
satellite images and GIS, the plan selected 40 locations in 6 zones for future
green spaces as followings;
Table 1: PPD Green Space Master
Plan.
|
|
Existing |
25 yrs plan |
||
|
Green space(rai[2]) |
Green space (sq.m/capita) |
Green space(rai) |
Green space (sq.m/capita) |
|
|
1.Rattanakosin
zone |
936.250 |
1.72 |
1064.562 |
2.290 |
|
2.Burapa (Eastern) zone |
1741.250 |
2.235 |
2608.725 |
4.632 |
|
3.Srinakarin zone |
1602.500 |
3.243 |
3686.414 |
11.222 |
|
4.Chao Phraya zone |
371.250 |
0.605 |
960.355 |
2.359 |
|
5.South Krungthon
zone |
191.563 |
0.303 |
585.813 |
5.794 |
|
6.North Krungthon
zone |
398.120 |
0.820 |
840.335 |
3.510 |
The purpose of green space according to the plan, the
space will be utilized as recreational park, urban forest park, water retention
area, and the suggestions also aimed to encourage communities and private
sectors in planting more trees in their property including parking space and
vacant and undeveloped land. Unfortunately, there is no implementation program attached
for public owned land.
- The system of urban land management in Thailand is
complex and confusing, even for those directly involved in its administration.
Over 20 agencies under 7 ministries, and several state enterprises are involved
in the various aspects of urban land management. As it happens with nearly
every other aspect of bureaucracy, the agencies responsible for urban land
management seldom coordinate their effort (Mekvichai,1998).Situation regarding
to the under-utilized space becomes more and more severe as being indicated by
the attempts to initiate several program in order to resolve the problem. This
research requires certain criteria used in selecting of study areas, which
involves the full range of involved actors (public agencies, state enterprises,
local government, district offices, community participation, private
entrepreneur, etc). Examples of
case study will be public agency and state enterprise, who own the land under
elevated transportation structure such as bridges, fly-over, under-utilized
land adjacent along the old conservation site, vacant lots/or pre-occupied by
squatters lots, site of relocated/re-functioned institute (military school),
etc. The three major organizations, at this stage, will be The Treasury
Department, Ministry of Finance (TRD), The State Railway of Thailand (SRT), and
The Expressway and Rapid Transit Authority (ETA)
-
There are 5 assumptions in the study;
1.
Public decision-making process is an important step of urban land management
policy.
2.
Ad-hoc nature in PLM policy is generated by policy and decision making problem.
3.
The integrated or multiplism approach would bring better result for urban
environmental management to achieve the sustainable and sound urban land
planning.
4.
Under-utilized space creates another possible opportunity to solve the complex
problems of urban re-development for ensuring social equity, better urban
environmental management and economic growth.
5.
The space itself can transform into valuable public land, provides the opportunity
of equity of public service distribution through the districts.
-
After determining assumption and preliminary studying, the hypotheses for
further analysis are set as followings;
1.
PLM decision-makings in each organization have been made by a group of decision
maker but they affect a variety of actors.
2.
BMA has a very strong involvement in PLM in term of operator and implementer
but usually have less authority in decision-makings.
3.
The purposes of land utilization are categorized into
· For public (social, services, environment, macro
economic)
· For owner organization (self economic, services)
· For others (stronger group of stakeholder/actor,
political reasons, negotiation)
- Public owned under-utilized spaces are
projected as one of the possible opportunity to solve the complex problems of
urban re-development for ensuring social equity, better urban environmental
management and economic growth. Its linear shape and small parcel of land tends
to form the integrated network and physical framework for linking communities
and their amenities together. In addition, the space itself can transform into
valuable public land, provides the opportunity of equity of public space
distribution through the districts. And as will be indicated in the last
chapter, the study would bring better result for urban environmental management
to achieve the sustainable and sound urban land planning.
-
The nature of public own under-utilized land is increasing relate to
· Black box public policy
· In-efficient decision making
· Poor land management
· Poor co-ordination
· Ignorance of public land owners/responsible actors
· Market involvement (economic factors)
2. PLM Policy guideline and decision making model: (draft final chapter is expected to be completed prior
to departure.)
-
This study will try to examine policy options targeted on a particular problem
of under-utilized spaces and systematically document and defend a policy
strategy on the utilization of those spaces. The methodology using in this
study is ‘Policy analysis’. The processes involve extensive data gathering from
many responsive stakeholders, elaborate calculations using empirical and
quantitative data. The analysis is aimed to improve decision-making in policy
level.
-
It will analyze the alternatives and make a recommendation to the organization
body. It focuses on decisions about whether to undertake specified courses of
action or not. To do this policy analysis needs to clarify the alternative
courses of action, identify criteria/standard for deciding which alternative(s)
to choose, compare the alternatives according to the criteria, and then
recommend a choice (Putt and Springer ,1989).
-
The policy study will focused on the followings;
· Problem : the under-utilized spaces
· Facts : Proper utilized land (benefits on social aspect,
city beautification, quality of life, economic, environment)
· Values : Role of the involved actors versus publicly service
-
The decision-making process normally is generated as a governmental action but
impacts to the third party actors, so called ‘public’, and then it may become a
‘public problem’. Especially, in the ‘democratic’ atmosphere, there has been
considerable increases in the interest and involvement of citizen participatory
in the process of decision-making process on public issues or at least,
concerning the ‘public benefit’.
- There are a variety of theories and models related
to policy decision-making. Some of them were made in a formal meeting, some had
influent from interest groups, but plenty of them did not. The detailed reviewing
each model will be discussed in the study. Especially, the lesson learned from
the decision-making process of public agencies in land management policy for
under-utilized space, which was identified as simple linear process and some
involve non decision-making. They have faced some problems caused by the
unpredictable factors during the process.
3. PLM Policy evaluation and criticism
- Policy
evaluation and criticism lecture will be among expert group of faculty
members/researchers. The expected number of attendants should be as small as
5-8 members. The activity will be meeting and seminar with in-depth
presentation of PLM policy study and suggested guideline by the candidate. This
session, the candidate aims to share ideas in the discussion and evaluate the
policy with the experts in the host institute. The duration will depend on the
attendants’ directions.
4. Final presentation of co-research activity on PLM policy
for under-utilized spaces in Bangkok, Thailand.
- This lecture will be the conclusion after the
co-research activity with interested focused group of faculties has been
discussed (lecture #3). The candidate will give a lecture in order to conclude
the result of the research, listen to criticism, ideas, and share some
experiences with the groups of students, researchers, and faculties in the host
institution. The lecture is expected to expand the knowledge of policy analysis
in different cultural atmosphere, although the issue of vacant land management
in the big cities is in the common interest.
5. Other requested lecture topics may relate to:
a. Thai government and
their public policy
b. Public streets movement
in Bangkok
c. Land utilization and
public open space in Bangkok.
e. etc.
Schedule
|
Time-line/activities
list |
Venue |
|
Jan2001-Dec2000 Special Studies (Policy
study, Multivariate analysis, Land utilization) and PhD course work |
Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand |
|
Jan
2002-Jun2002 Proposal, Literature
review, Preliminary survey |
AIT, Chulalongkorn
University, Bangkok, Thailand |
|
Jul2002-Nov2002 Data collection, In-depth
interview, Chapter 1-3 [Data collecting part] |
Cases
visiting/meeting (Treasury Dept, State Railway of Thailand, Expressway and
Rapid Transits Authority, BMA) Bangkok, Thailand |
|
Dec2002-Jul2003 Analysis, Synthesis,
Chapter 4-6 [Policy descriptive analysis, Prescriptive part] |
Bangkok, Thailand |
|
**Sep2003-Dec2003 Evaluation, Chapter 7-8
[Experimental part]
composed by these following lectures and presentations. o
Country
and situation report on PLM for under-utilized spaces in Bangkok, Thailand. o
Informal
visits, attendances to classes, workshops on Policy, Urban Environmental
Planning and Landscape planning. o
PLM
Policy guideline and decision making model: (draft) final chapter. o
PLM
Policy evaluation. o
Final
presentation of PLM policy for under-utilized spaces in Bangkok, Thailand. o
Conclusion |
Host institute, USA o
Lecture o
Visiting,
co-research o
Presentation/seminar o
Expert
meeting o
Presentation o
Individual
research |
|
Dec2003 Dissertation final
examination. |
AIT, Thailand |