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

 



[1] Public Land Management

[2] Rai = Thai area measurement unit. 1 rai =1,600 sq.m.