Types and Tools of Land Use Zoning Towards Dealing with Private Properties in Re-planning Inner Informal Areas (Case Study: Maspero Triangle – Cairo Governorate)

Abstract

Land use zoning policy has been applied in many countries such as the United States, England and Germany, since the second half of the nineteenth century, as one of legal systems for managing and regulating land uses in cities through many types and tools that are developed over the time. The primary type focused on identifying specific kind of land use in each area, without any mixing to improve the environmental conditions. Then, the following types used the population density index to reduce congestion in large cities,  in addition to some physical and urban characteristics such as building heights, building size, floor area ratio, the percentage of roads, services and open spaces to cover environment, social, economic and urban dimensions and measure the degree of achievement the development goals for creating livable communities. Although these types are diverse, there are a number of challenges in implementation them such as the refusal of some owners towards applying planning recommendations on their private properties. In addition to the lack of justice and freedom among some owners in choosing appropriate land use for their own revenues. For these reasons, there is emergence of new types called land use plot, spot and rezoning policy, which deal with each land plot in a more flexible way to achieve a balance between the public interest and private benefits. At the local level, it is clear that zoning policy has appeared in Egypt since 1905 for planning the new residential suburban areas by using specific building requirements for each area to create compatible urban environments and a distinct urban personality. Then it was used in re-planning process for existing areas and informal communities through various planning and building laws, which need to be developed for dealing with the private properties without any dispute between the stakeholders and without government spending towards the compensation values. Therefore, this paper is important in determining the suitable types and tools of zoning policy for re-planning informal areas with private properties, by reviewing the results of some studies and international experiences in this field. As well as evaluating the current applied types of land use zoning policy in developing Egyptian informal areas through selecting one case study (Maspero triangle area), to benefit from the results of theoretical and practical framework in implementation the future projects with the acceptance of all parties and owners.