Illegality of private subdivision and access to land for housing by the urban poor in Dhaka

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Illegality of private subdivision and access to land for housing by the urban poor in Dhaka

Md. Manjur Morshed

^*

Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Khulna University of Engineering and Technology (KUET), Khulna 9203, Bangladesh

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Available online

Keywords:

Land Housing Illegality Subdivision Dhaka Bangladesh

a b s t r a c t

This paper concerns the illegal peripheral subdivisions in Dhaka city, Bangladesh. These subdivisions were a cheap solution to the demand for land, thereby housing, for the urban poor. With ascent on the enabling policy, Roy (2009) refers the peripheral subdivisions as ‘privatization of informality’ and wealthy command infrastructure, services and legitimacy that come to be designated as‘formal’by the state. Legalisation is selective for the socio-economically and politically powerful land developers. The land price of these legal subdivisions is high. Considering the land price, this paper argues that the urban poor have little to no access to the legal subdivisions in Dhaka. Policy suggestions are made at the end of the paper.

Introduction

More than half of the world's population live in urban areas and one third of those supposedly live in slums. The Millenium Decla- ration in 2000 (MDG 7) aims to make‘signiﬁcant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by the year 2020’(UN Habitat, 2003). Because of the increasing number of slum dwellers, and from the experiences of developing countries, the world clearly faces a major urban housing crisis (Gilbert, 2009; Sengupta, 2010).

In Asian cities, which comprise about 60% of the world slum population, the lack of housing is one of the most serious and wide- spread consequences and causes of poverty (Yuen, 2007). Land has been at the centre of housing discourse because without access to cheap and buildable land, building affordable, well-ordered and incremental housing in large quantities is virtually impossible (Choguill, 2007: 148). Access to land for housing by the urban poor lies at the heart of this debate in mega cities, such as, Dhaka. How the legality or formality of land subdivision is deﬁned and whether the urban poor can access those in Dhaka is the point of discussion of this paper.

Dhaka ranked ninth among the world's mega cities with an estimated population of 17.6 million in 2014 (Prothom Alo, 2014b), increasing to an expected 25 million by the year 2025 (UN, 2010). At least 100,000 household units every year are required just to house the added population (Seraj, 2009). An estimated 3.4 million people

in the city live in slums. Access to housing is being met, this not being done at standards considered acceptable, or perhaps legal, from the perspective of the state. Not more than 15% of the one million housing units in the city are provided by the formal sources (Islam, 2004; Table 1). The subdivisions in the peripheral parts, though ofﬁcially illegal,¹have proven adaptive and responsive to the market demand for land (Fekade, 2000: 135). The forces of the marketplace operate to affect the supply side conditionse the production of housing stock over time through new construction, renovation, or redevelopmenteeven law prohibits it. Private land developers and house builders continue to provide a new addition to the land and housing stock so long as the cost to produce it is equal to a competitive return from sale or rental (Vandell, 2012:

644).

The enabling policy of the World Bank (WB) entailed a notable shift in the role of the public sector from directly providing to engaging the private sector in supplying land, and constructing, ﬁnancing, operating and maintaining housing units. It ofﬁcially promoted increased participation by the private sector and underscored the government's role in creating conditions conducive to land supply by eliminating legal and regulatory constraints

*Tel.:þ880 1748 261050(Mobile).

E-mail addresses:manjurmorshedkhan@gmail.com,mmorshed05@yahoo.ca.

1 The term‘illegal’subdivisions as applied here is synonymous to‘unplanned settlements’or to‘irregular settlements’or to‘informal settlements’, the term used byDuran-Lasserve (1996: vi). Similarly, the terms‘pirate’ (Gilbert, 1981),‘self- planned’and‘substandard commercial residential subdivisions (SCRS)’ (Fekade, 2000) are used to signify the similar status of the subdivisions. Herein, they are referred to as‘illegal’when discussing the case study because they are ofﬁcially deﬁned so in Bangladesh.

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and supporting appropriate infrastructure investments (Sengupta, 2006). The land and housing supply in developing countries is passing through a transitional period.²However,Varley (2013: 4) argues that despite the intent to formalise/legalise the land and housing, the result can, ironically, be to perpetuate them. While much of the cityﬂouts planning regulations, and the state may disregard its own laws when itﬁnds it convenient to do so, only certain claims to land are designated illegitimate. Such selective enforcement of planning norms suggests a‘calculated informality’, a‘system of deregulation’that is also‘a mode of regulation’(Roy, 2009a; Varley, 2013: 5).

Against this background, the second section of the paper is the literature review that seeks to reﬂect on the transitional process from the government to market-led land and housing supply. The third section provides a short summary of land and housing demand and supply in Dhaka. This is followed by the methodology.

Thefifth section details the profile of the developers. The sixth section is the discussion and is followed by conclusions in thefinal section.

Literature review

Sustained urbanisation rates have posed multifaceted problems in developing countriesechief among those is the provision of shelter for the low-income groups. The combination of rapid urban growth, limited governmental capacity and resources and the sheer number of people living in poverty failed most of the government approaches to housing (Gilbert, 2009). The government was unable to deliver affordable mass housing because the whole system lacked a sound economic base due to the level of subsidies involved (Choguill, 1988: 30e1,2009: 525;Sengupta, 2006: 450). Nor did public housing achieve its social equity objectivese contrary to original intent, beneﬁciaries of public housing are, by and large, middle and upper income residents (Fekade, 2000: 137; Shidlo, 1990).

While the socio-economically better-off groups can secure housing, low-income groups often have to fend for themselves in substandard and illegal markets. The land and housing markets are inseparable in developing countries, in which owner occupied housing is predominantly a land market (Sivam, 2002). The peripheral residential subdivisions have been a major source of land supply in most cities of developing countries (Baross &Van der Linden, 1990; Fekade, 2000). It is often argued that the emer- gence of informal sub-market is the result of planning regulations inherited from the colonial administration that practice unduly

high standards in view of the ﬁnancial capacity of low-income households (Gilbert, 1981; Mehta, Mitra,&Nientied, 1989; Sivam, 2002: 528).

In 1991, the Bank's policy paper, New Urban Management Pro- gramme (NUMP) recommended a shift of the central government's role from direct provider of urban infrastructure and services to enabler. The major components of this policy are: i) simple regulation so that the private sector can respond to market demand; ii) the delivery of land and housing through privately raised capital;

iii) cost recovery of government investments; and iv) formalising illegal land and housing so that taxes can be charged (Jones&Ward, 1994: 33;Zanetta, 2001). Since the private sector is more efﬁcient and responsive to the market demand than the public sector in providing land and housing,‘enabling the market’has become the ofﬁcial doctrine for most of the developing countries.

There are several major consequences of the enabling policy concerning low-income land and housing supply in developing countries. First, housing has became less priority for the government, as its social allocation and cutbacks are justiﬁed as housing reforms, which has taken many forms and manifestations. Sec- ondly, in the name of cost recovery of investments, public housing programmes disproportionately favour middle and upper income groups, but those by-pass low-income shelter needs (Sengupta, 2010: 323). Thirdly,Firman (2009: 332) notes that land conversion by the local government and private sector in Jakarta is caused by political interests and pressures by placing what are perceived to be proﬁtable economic activities. Fourthly, large cities of developing countries present the duality of both planned and unplanned urban forms and exclusive residential areas (see Firman, 2004;

Sengupta, 2010). Finally, in all developing countries, with rare ex- ceptions, both the public and private land development takes place through violation of land use plans. Implementation of regulation and controls are so weak that land use plans are ineffective in controlling physical development (Firman, 2009; Sivam, 2002:

529).

Roy (2009a: 82e3) suggests that with the consolidation of neoliberalism, there has been a‘privatization of informality’. It is a mechanism in wholly privatized and marketed urban formations,

“that constitute the peri-urbanization of so many cities. These subdivisions are no more legal than squatter settlements and shantytowns, but they are expressions of class power and can thus command infrastructures, services, and legitimacy in a way that marks them as substantially different from the landscape of slums”. Varley (2013: 13) suggests that informality is not the absence of law because the state has often permitted developments for middle- class housing, industrial zones and government ofﬁces violating its own laws.Ghertner (2008: 66) noted that almost all of Delhi violates some planning or building laws. Developments that have the‘World-class’look, despite violating zoning of building byelaws, are granted amnesty and heralded as monuments of modernity (Varley, 2013).

The Market solution to the low-income housing problem in cities of developing countries is far from reality. However, there are different emphases of the enabling policy. TheUNCHS (1992)suggests that reliance on the market economy refers to shifting re- sponsibility for physically constructing dwellings on-to the market, which would enable governments to concentrate on reforming and managing the legal, regulatory and ﬁnancial policy frameworks.

Kenna (2010)suggests that the governments'ﬁrst obligation is to see that all are decently housed, and the for-proﬁt market is managed and regulated in a way subservient to the goal. Leat (2004) suggests that ‘roll back of the state’is supposed to sub- contract the delivery of public services to complex partnerships (the privatisation of publicly held assets, and deregulation and expansion of social service-oriented NGOs under neo-liberalism).

Table 1

Relative contribution of housing delivery sub-sectors in Dhaka.

Housing sub-sector Units Percentage

Formal Public housing 100,000 10

Private housing 48,000 2.8

Cooperative 2000 2.1

Total formal 150,000 15

Informal Private housing 500,000 50

Slums 200,000 20

Squatter settlements 150,000 15

Total informal 850,000 85

Total 1,000,000 100

Source:Islam, 2004

2 Kombe (2000)deﬁnes the‘transitional period’as the time required to change from bureaucratic land allocation to a well-functioning market-led supply system.

This is the time needed for the formal institutions entrusted with the management of urban land, in particular the supply of housing land, to develop the capacity to supply sufﬁcient planned and surveyed land for housing.

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Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is one of the most prominent urban housing policies, also a mean to provide cross-subsidy, which has emerged out of the emerging paradigms of 2000s. From 2000 onwards, the Bank's policy recommendation is to ﬁnd opportu- nities for government intervention and to target the poor directly, emphasizing on safety nets to address short-term solutions (Zanetta, 2001: 521).

Land and housing in Dhaka: supply and demand

Access to housing has always been constrained by low affordability in Bangladesh. The country's brief period of trying to emulate Singapore's solution in the 1970s ended in failure because the apartments were produced at a cost which ranged from 2.4 to 7.8 times the maximum affordable by a household at the 80th income percentile (Choguill, 1988: 32). Later, the government sites- and-services projects in the 1980s were not affordable by the target population, despite their modest approach. In 1989, the Bangladesh Planning Commission recognised the need for 300,000 housing units per year in the country over the next 15 years (Choguill, 1993).

One feasible way to understand the acuteness of the housing problem in the city is to note the increase in rent over the years.

According to a recent study, the runaway rent outpaces tenants' incomes by far and has risen by at least 15% annually for the last 10 years (The Daily Star, 2011). On average the Dhaka-dwellers are forced to spend 35e45% of their income on house rent (Dhaka Tribune, 2013). Excessive house rent is linked to low availability of affordable and buildable land.³

Land price in Dhaka is higher than most cities in the United States. Land prices in Dhaka have been estimated by the Bangladesh Institute of Planners (BIP): the Dhanmondi residential area is average roughly BDT 3500 or around US$60/ft², Gulshan about BDT 3194 and Baridhara about BDT 3000. Even in the least expensive peripheral residential areas, the land price is about BDT 1600 (WB, 2007: 38)⁴. In comparison, the mean imputed land cost (extensive margin) in some cities of the United States is as follows ($/ft²)⁵: Boston 13.1; Los Angeles 30.4; New York 32.3; and San Francisco 64 (Glaeser&Gyourko, 2002). About 97% of the urban poor in the city do not own any land (Islam, 2004). This real scarcity is compounded by an artiﬁcial scarcity due to the lack of utilisation of public land.

Public land in the inner city area remains undeveloped or developed with very low density; this constitutes as much as 20% of the total land area (WB, 2007).

Choguill (2009)suggested that the governments in Bangladesh had never lacked ideas for housing the poor. For example, a reha- bilitation project by the National Housing Authority (NHA) for 26,000 shelter-less families in Mirpur-14 can be cited as one among many benevolent ideas. However, recently the project ended without reaching its target. Mirpur is the biggest and one of the very few land projects for the poor (seeChoguill, 1993, 1988). On the contrary, successful government land projects are segregated residential areas for the upper and middle-income groups. Contrary to the national housing policy, and in violation of the Dhaka Metropolitan Development Plan (DMDP), the Capital City

Development Authority (Rajdhani Unnayan KatripakhaeRAJUK) is developing a new town in the eastern fringe of the metropolitan area (Fig. 1). Comprising an area of 6150 acres, this project is the biggest and thefirst of its kind. Quotas limit access to 78% of all land plots while priority is given to formal jobholders. Only 22% of the total serviced plots are dedicated to private jobholders and wage earners (The Daily Star, 2009). Therefore, high rent, inflation proof investment and the unavailability of formal or government land are forcing people to look for cheap land in the city periphery resulting in the developers' sites and services being a particularly lucrative business. The DMDP also acknowledges that new land conversions will continue to occur, particularly in locations adjacent to presently developed and developing areas, in spite of highflood risk and a paucity of infrastructure and other social and community services (RAJUK, 1995: 37).

The National Housing Policy of Bangladesh, 1993 (revised in 2004 and 2008) marked a signiﬁcant transition in the government's policies for urban development. The policy proposes that the government should only intervene in the land market, in an enabling capacity, to remove existing impediments in the supply, transfer, and regulations of land for shelter (RAJUK, 1995: 29). Even after subsequent budgetary commitment (3.29% in the 2013e14ﬁnan- cial year), there has been no legal framework for PPP for land and housing delivery. Enabling the social service oriented NGOs to form partnership with public and private sectors for urban housing delivery has been considered an option by many (e.g.,Choguill, 2009;

Rahman, 2002).

Material and methods Study area

Since the core city area is already been built-up, future developments have to be in the peripheral low-lyingﬂood plains and in the highly productive agricultural land (Roy, 2009b). To prevent unregulated land development, the metropolitan area was extended in 1987 to comprise an area of 1528 km² under the jurisdiction of RAJUK. Therefore, RAJUK is responsible to develop, improve, extend and manage the city and the peripheral areas through development planning and control. The extended area covers most part of the four surrounding administrative regions:

Savar, Joydevpur, Keraniganj and Narayangong. The DMDP, 1995e2015 was a comprehensive planning system that was completed in 2010 to control and guide the land development of 1528 km². The proposed land use of the extended area in the DMDP is virtually a greenbelt; about 23.1% area is demarcated as agricultural areas, 21.1% asﬂood-ﬂow zone and 7.4% as water body and water retention area (Fig. 1).

Due to the unavailability within the central metropolitan area (City Corporation area), land conversion is expected to be in the peripheral regions. Eastern fringe of the metropolitan area (both within and outside) was selected as the study area. This selection roughly covers a government land project and the area within which the developers exist. Low-lying agricultural land,ﬂood-ﬂow zones and rural settlements dominate land use of the study area inside the metropolitan area. Scope for the urban residential area is negligible. Except few municipal areas outside the metropolitan area, both inside (excluding the City Corporation area) and outside the metropolitan area have similar land uses.

Field investigation

Due to their illegality, information about the subdivision developers is a commercial secret. In most cases, these developers are hostile to individual researchers. Field surveys in August, 2011 and

3 For most Dhaka dwellers the prospect of being able to buy a house appears to be the poorest in South Asian cities as the price-income ratio here is 5:1 or more, although highly unequal income distribution would push down the proportion.

Normally a ratio between 2:1 and 3:1 would generally imply that a signiﬁcant portion of the middle-income population could afford to purchase house (Dhaka Tribune, 2013).

4 US$1¼about 58.3 BDT in 2007, about 79.5 BDT in 2014.

5 Per capita GDP in the United States on a Purchasing Power Parity basis is 20 times that of Bangladesh (WB, 2007).

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September, 2012, one month each, were conducted among the developers, RAJUK, subdivision planners and Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh (REHAB) under the guise of a potential land buyer. Identity as an overseas resident was valuable in gaining the trust of the developers since many of these developers speciﬁcally target buyers resident overseas.

From an online search, newspaper reports and advertisements, a total of 62 developers were identiﬁed. Of these, 47 appeared at the Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh (REHAB) fair in 2011 offering land plots. These 47 developers were contacted via telephone and 30 offered guided site visits with company representatives. This signiﬁes that some of the interviewed developers have the land to show and are thus better off than their business counterparts. Thirteen developers refused any site visits or meetings due to the lack of personnel and four were unavailable for contact.

Of the 30 developers interviewed, 23 offered vehicles for transportation to and from the sites accompanied by company representatives. Due to the mismatch of schedules with the rest of the seven developers, meetings were held with the representatives of the developers in their ofﬁces and site visits were conducted personally by the author. In-depth interviews concerning the location, land ﬁlling, proposed area, future prospects of

government intervention, other developers in the vicinity and the possibility of investment were conducted with the assisting company representatives. The income of these company representatives signiﬁcantly depends on the sales commission. They should thus expected to be promoting their respective companies. To overcome this bias, ﬁve land use planners presently working in some of these companies were interviewed through the author's personal and professional contacts. These planners were key in- formants providing the facts about the land developments beyond the typical responses from the representatives of the developers.

Theﬁrst author's past work experience in land development was helpful to the comprehensive understanding about the developers.

Several discussions with three RAJUK planners in charge of land development in the study area were conducted to gain un- derstandings regarding the official perspectives. Two field visits were made with the RAJUK planners at the end of the field investigation.

The proposed land use map of the DMDP was collected from RAJUK. Hard copies of the DMDP and those available online were consulted to gain an understanding of the on-going government development process. Newspaper reports on the developers were helpful in updating the total number of developers, and learning about the complexities and problems of land development in the Fig. 1.Proposed land use of the DMDP and study area.

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study area. Those developers surfaced after theﬁeld investigation of 2011 were not included in the following discussion. Academics at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning (URP), Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) signiﬁcantly contributed to this research by providing previous researches, reports and policy documents.

Proﬁle of the land developers

The developers are operating in large numbers without any tacit permission. Many land owners other than the formally recognised companies have begun land subdivisions. The developers promise new town type residential development where all urban facilities will be available even though there is no legal guarantee or written commitment from the developers or from the government. Based on the location, there are two types of developers: those inside and those outside the metropolitan area. All the developers inside the metropolitan area are‘illegal’since they alter the proposed land use plan of the DMDP. Recently, RAJUK banned operation of all developers (except ﬁve) both inside and outside the metropolitan area. The DMDP was designed to guide the physical expansion from 1995 to 2015. One speculation is that the developers will force the alteration of the DMDP after 2015, which is probably the only possibility of legalising the developers. However, another planning project, City Region Development Planning, 2016e2035, is currently ongoing to guide the future growth of the metropolitan area and beyond.

Three intertwined groups are protecting the interests of the developers: RAJUK, Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh (REHAB), and local political leaders and residents.

During all the site visits and meetings with the developers, all of them referred to the company affiliation with the powerful personnel, e.g., ex-army officer, local Member of Parliament, government bureaucrats and political leaders. This implies that the developers can continue their operation even it is illegal. In addition, many RAJUK officials own companies or work as consultants in one to several developers. They assist in creating the land use maps or in bypassing the technical requirements. One of the main ob- jectives of the DMDP is to preserve the agricultural and low-lying land and to halt illegal land conversions. Preservation of these areas is against the interest of the local politicians, landowners and residents. The demarcated agricultural and low lands of the metropolitan area are mostly privately owned. According to the DMDP, these areas are legally protected from residential conversion. Therefore, implementation of the DMDP stands against the interests of the major stakeholders and rarely has any local support except from the experts, intellectuals and environmental groups.

RAJUK has been unable to implement the DMDP (i.e. removing illegal buildings, clearing the proposed land projects) due to the opposition from the major stakeholders.

The developers outside the metropolitan areas must have permission from the local authorities, e.g., local municipality. These bodies have neither the capacity to guide nor the intention to control such land developments. Additionally, these land developments are economically beneﬁcial for the locality due to the increase in land price and investment opportunity. Local political leaders play an important role in the negotiation for planning permission and service provision by making it a one-stop service in exchange for bribes. Following a few conditions, such as, employing local labour and occasional bribe to the local political leaders, re- sults in a winewin situation for the both parties. Often the de- velopersﬁnance local elections of politicians to gain patronage in acquiring land.

Fig. 2 shows a typical layout of subdivisions. The design con- siders only thecul-de-sacor the gridiron pattern to maximise the

number of plots. A few plots and corner spaces are kept as open spaces and community facilities (e.g., schools, play lots and mos- ques). However, based on the design, and in absence of an over- seeing body, it is certain that these spaces are not spared. Higher order services (e.g., playground) requiring larger spaces are left uncategorised since these do not concern potential buyers. In reality, none of these developers will provide space for these facilities.

Such land use plans are required to conform to the planning requirements, but those are part of the advertisement and proﬁt making strategies of the developers. In practice, these developers deviate, in most cases completely, from the proposed layout plans (Fig. 3).

Strictly speaking, most developers have not even acquired the land they are selling. The present status of the proposed areas is mainly low-lying ricefields. The proposed land uses only exist in maps which were produced with the assistance of professionals working in the planning authorities like RAJUK. The proposal areas of the developers will extend laterally as the number of potential customers increases. From thefield investigation among 30 developers, most overlap in their proposed areas on the map. The total proposed area of the developers surpasses the total land area actually available. In many cases, the developers have only bought or rented the land on which to put their signboards. During thefield investigation and site visits, all confessed that the proposed land area was not acquired at all or at best 30%. Numerous cases of forced eviction of the local people, double dealing and delays in the land handovers have been reported in the daily newspapers. In some cases, RAJUK took swift actions against the allegations. However, such actions were in piecemeal fashion and were thus insufficient to limit the on-going land dealings. The tenure insecurity becomes complex when one company disappears or takes possession of another leaving the buyers with unlimited harassment.

The developers have established a new mechanism of land transaction in which potential buyers unfamiliar with the location pay in instalments. Since all clients pay in instalments, there is no hurry for either party to physically ensure the land parcel. Rather, it is a slow investment for future land on which to build housing, or for speculative proﬁt making. The price is paid overﬁve to ten years, mostly by monthly instalments. The land registration process takes place when half the price of land is paid, and legal ownership is granted after the full payment. This process gives the developers the opportunity to reinvest the money to extend the project. A down payment is possible, but this is rarely the case due to high land price and lack of immediate use potentials except agriculture.

The usual mode of payment is in instalments overﬁve to ten years and often by multiple parties. However, considering the over- lapping areas among the developers, illegality of land conversion,

Fig. 2.Typical layout plan of the developers.

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violation of the design standards and tenure insecurity, the current land market poses critical challenges for general land buyers. The competition among developers to occupy the land has resulted in a rapid land price increase, thereby, the subdivision price.

The developers promise to be responsible for the provision of utility services. However, due to their illegal status, utility service providers are not legally obliged or allowed to deliver. Except few reputed developers, the subdivisions consider no other urban requirements (e.g., storm drainage, power stations and sewerage) but ﬁlling in land. Therefore, in future, all developers will have to rely on illegal connections, creating an immense burden for the government to deliver the urban services. Property development in these subdivisions is cumbersome and time-consuming, and is often done by intermediaries that incur substantial costs. Even though there is a signiﬁcant amount of bureaucracy involved at every stage of property development, no decision is made in the political vacuum in Bangladesh. Legalisation, utility and service provision of the subdivisions often remain the political/election agenda of the local leaders. However, land buyers rarely have complete information about this land market.

Discussion

This paper has presented the case of private residential subdivision in Dhaka. Even with the ascent of the enabling policy, the government continues to intervene directly in the land and housing market while violating the housing policy and planning system. On the contrary, the land use proposal of the DMDP is upheld against the developers.Roy (2003, 2009a: 81) argues that urban governance operates through mapping and unmapping,“that is, informality, allowing the state considerable territorializedflexibility to alter land use, deploy eminent domain, and to acquire land”. RAJUK maps the new town and acquires land while unmaps the existing settlements and housing companies by demarcating those as the agricultural and theflood-flow zones in the DMDP. Recently the high court has halted landfilling in of 56 developers as the result of a petition from the environmental NGOs. However, government projects have government permissions, thus high court rule is not applicable (Kalerkontho, 2011a). There is a fundamental conflict between the planning system and the private land developments.

Here, as it appears, both the government and private land developments are illegal from based on the planning system. There- fore, legality is not the primary constraint of urban land transition.

Rather, it is the binary characterisation of land development: government and private or legal and illegal. However,Roy (2009a: 84) dismisses the concept of‘extra-legal’, because such terminology

implies that informal system runs parallel to the formal and the legal. While deﬁning informality as a convergence of legality and extra-legality, she suggests that informality exists at the very heart of the state and is an integral part of the territorial practices of state power.

Similar to the government logic for land projects (e.g., new town), the developers come to the logical conclusion that land development in the metropolitan area and beyond is necessary for the growing population, and mentions the future prospects of suburban development in their advertisements. In spite of the violation of the DMDP, five developers were given conditional permission because they fulfilled certain criteria (e.g., land purchase, land use planning). Answering to a question regarding the illegality of the developers and their violation of the DMDP land use proposals, the Minister of Public Works responded that all decisions would be based on facing the reality (Kalerkontho, 2011b). Such openness to the developers is for the well-known socio-economically and politically influential land mafias. Therefore, similar to the findings ofVarley (2013), the current land development process is not in the absence of law, but a selective enforcement of the law.

There are several categories of developers, but these are not deﬁned by their land plot quality, provision of services and infrastructures or following of the planning regulations. The reputation of the developers is primarily a function of their socio-economic and political power.

Kombe and Kreibich (2000)suggest that the government does not have complete information about the informal land development process. In this case, RAJUK, Real-estate and Housing Asso- ciation of Bangladesh (REHAB), intermediaries, local political leaders and residents are intricately linked to the land development. There was a case in which 56 developers had to abandon their project sites overnight due to a rumour that RAJUK was going to take severe administrative action (Kalerkontho, 2011a). How- ever, very few in the land administration, RAJUK, environmental NGOs or civil organisations actually believe that RAJUK is either capable or willing to contain the illegal land developments in the metropolitan area. Numerous cases of insider dealings between RAJUK planners and developers have been reported in the newspapers. In fact, there is a sense of despair among the urban planners, policy makers and environmental groups that implementation of the DMDP is a failure.Firman (2009: 328) notes the importance of a grounded examination of urbanisation, that is, the understanding of the local context, the broader socio-economic and political situation, as well as the physical condition of the places and societies in which the region exists. In any case, keeping the developers illegal best serves thefinancial interest of the local Fig. 3.Illegal land development in Dhaka city. Basundhara Group is one of the most prominent land developers in Dhaka. Initially an illegal landfilling in environmentally sensitive areas, most parts of the land project is being legalised. In addition, the project site is illegally expanding inside the DMDP area. Numerous expensive real estates are being developed in the area owned or rented by upper-income groups. It houses the headquarters of the highest taxpayers in Bangladesh (Grameenphone LTD.), one of the best known private universities (North South University), government offices, banks and hospitals.

Source: author's photographs.

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political leaders, intermediaries and RAJUK ofﬁcials. Therefore, perpetual informality/illegality of the subdivision developers is not intentional as suggested byVarley (2013), but can be a calculated ﬁnancial decision.

One of the common drawbacks of these land developments from the planning perspective is that they do not follow land use regulations.Kombe (2000)notes that the service provision of the low-income subdivisions in Tanzania is a market process, where services (e.g., schools, markets and roads) evolve with time and local need. Therefore, the utopia of modern rectilinear and axial urban form, land use regulations and service provisions are not valid reasons to restrict developers. Contrary to the suggestions of Gilbert (1981), subdivision developers are not risk-taking entre- preneurs. Except a few large and well-known companies for whom government restriction in not the primary constraint, developers only invest when there is a confirmation of a certain number of buyers. During the field survey, we found several companies currently out of business, and their staffs are working for another company with the same contact information. Therefore, it cannot be generalised that the developers are successful in the authenti- cation, transfer and sale of land, contrary to thefindings ofVan der Linden (1994). Such insecurity of tenure is an outcome of the perpetual illegality and extra-legal market process of the less powerful developers. The term‘subdivision’often refers to a well-organised land acquisition and distribution process (seeGilbert, 1981). Sub- division in the city periphery is one mode, often the easiest mode to avoid cumbersome legal procedures, but certainly not the only mode of land supply. From our observation, there are multiple ways to acquire land, e.g., individual buys, company ventures and group investment from people with similar occupational status; however, none of these people is urban poor.

Finally, cities are segregated geographic spaces that are visible by the housing distribution.Firman (2004)andRoy (2009c) noted the new town type self-sufficient residential areas for middle and upper income groups in Jakarta and developing countries as one of the consequences of neo-liberal land development. Though legal land supply was ensured in Jakarta, large tracts of land remained undeveloped but a few new town type segregated residential areas for the richflourished. Similarly, developers in Dhaka are proposing new town type self-sufficient residential areas with all the service and facilities, but a few powerful developers have acquired government permission. The land prices of these developers are high.

Developers can be categorised based on their land price, and this is possibly one of the best ways to predict their legality and future prospects.

Conclusion

Several conclusions can be made from the subdivision development in Dhaka. First, legitimacy and perseverance of both the government and private land developments is deﬁned by power.

Private land market is a speculative monopoly for the large and powerful developers because small developers are systematically eliminated from for the market. Therefore, probably, the enabling policy has enabled only a few powerful developers. Arguably, the state agencies can do very little to control these developers. Sec- ondly, local politicians, intermediaries, RAJUK planners and land ownerseall these stakeholders are in favour of the land because of theﬁnancial gain, which ultimately add-up to theﬁnal subdivision price. Contrary to the suggestion ofGilbert (2009), many of the housing problems will prolong even with the country's economic growth and rising affordability because of the rising land price.

Finally, high land price is an indicator of legality, infrastructure and utility provision. The urban poor in Dhaka cannot afford these legal subdivisions.

Several pragmatic suggestions can be made from the case study.

Supply of cheap buildable urban land in large quantity is virtually impossible without a functioning and competitive market. Aside from creating conditions conducive for the small developers, one considerable option is to increase government supply of buildable land through resettlements and sites-and-services. To meet the Affordability criteria and to recover the land development costs, similar to the PPP model, private builders can be allowed to make high-density housing on some of the serviced land. Secondly, a fundamental shift of approach from land based housing to housing is necessary. Access to land by the urban poor is considered the key to affordable housing and to overcome poverty e it is hardly a practicable option given the land price in Dhaka. Expert opinions too suggest that housing solution for 17.6 million inhabitants of Dhaka is possible without further land conversion in the peripheral regions (Prothom Alo, 2014a).

Thirdly, the increasing role of the government by forming partnership with different private sectors and NGOs toﬁnd multiple housing solutions should be considered.Sengupta (2006: 448) refers to the success of Public-Private partnership (PPP) policy in housing delivery in Kolkata where public housing agencies have assumed facilitator and regulator roles to achieve a balance between the market forces and the needs of the urban poor.Rahman (2002)noted the success of NGOs in negotiating utility and service facilities formally for the informal slum communities in Dhaka.

Therefore, joining the accountability and righteousness of the public sectors with the efﬁciency, technical expertise and motiva- tions of the private sectors and NGOs can invigorate the housing delivery system. NGOs in Bangladesh are capable of constructing and mobilising public opinion (WB, 2006), which should be theﬁrst step towards securing housing rights for the poor in Dhaka.

Finally, housing right cannot be compromised in for-proﬁt market. Self-help adequate housing solution is a failure for the poor. Government should play a dominant role in devising mech- anisms and exploring multiple options to secure the housing right.

Bangladesh is a forerunner in fulﬁlling the Millennium Develop- ment Gaols (MDGs) by 2020, but yet to make a dent in housing the urban poor. Therefore, signiﬁcant challenges lie ahead.

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