Zoning ordinance regime in the face of uncertainty world

By: Bayu Wirawan

Introduction
In the 21st century, humanity and their surrounding facing a tremendous change and challenge
compare to six decades ago, especially after the world war two. One obvious distinction is the
surging number of earth population of around 2.5 billion people in 1950 and becomes 7.3 billion
people in 2015 (UN DESA, 2015), whilst around 52% of them nowadays living in urban areas (Seto, et
al., 2012). For the spatial planning aspect, this condition causing the arise of many conditions that
never fathom before by planner because of the possibility of what may happened in the future of
urban planning (Byrne, 2003, p. 174), such as housing provision, infrastructure adequacy, urban
sustainability, etc.
In this essay, I would like to discuss about the consequences of the world evolving toward urban
planning, especially in the application of zoning ordinance with its rigid directions toward this
changing world, and how planners can utilize the complexity theory as a means to faces this fast
changing and uncertainty condition toward the future.

Complexity and Planning

The main problem of the nowadays urban planning process while facing the uncertainty are, it
tended to be practiced with the technical planning process which focuses on several aspects such
as rationalism, modernism, reductionism, utopianism, also elitism, and therefore it unable to
encounter intricate aspects of sustainability (McAdams, 2008).
As planning process goes, to
achieve the desired conditions for urban planning, planners (backed up and/or collaborated with
many actors) uses their spatial plan and its goals and targets as a guide for urban development, and
at some point also using zoning ordinance. However, technology development, changing in society
mindset and capabilities, and local needs resulting in the changes of spatial configurations that
spatial plan cannot follow (Rauws, et al., 2014, p.133). At another level, planners must deal and
interplay within governance system that used in one place, whereas each governance system type
have a different way in dealing the rapidly changing conditions (Duit & Galaz, 2008)
Connecting between fast changing and uncertain condition with the urban planning process, Byrne
(2003) proposed complexity theory as a bridge to break the limitation of analytical simplicity and
traditional modelling techniques, or as Portugali (2006) proposed to be linked between space
(abstraction of experiential reality) and place (location for people to live). Later on complexity
theory developed more and became a complex adaptive system (CAS) to explain the connection and
propose the bridging of changing and uncertainty with development plans (Rauws, et al., 2014) and
governance system (Duit & Galaz, 2008).

Zoning Ordinance as Urban Planning Tools Facing the Changing Reality

The World has changed drastically in the last six decades, especially with the rapid development of
urban areas. In 1960 there are only 2 megacities (city with more than 10 million inhabitants) in the
world, while in 2014 it became 28 megacities (Seto, et al., 2012, p.930; UN DESA, 2014, p.26).
Many of those megacities (such as New York and Jakarta) are forced by its own government, to use
zoning ordinance as their tools to implement their strategic plan and control their development.
Jakarta for example, in 2014 has already updated its zoning ordinance law and will use it as a tools
to manage Jakarta City chaotic land use and create better Jakarta for the next 20 years (Jakarta
Province, 2014). But in another part of the world, the usage of zoning already questioned by its

citizens. New York City zoning ordinance -a more than one century concept- now is considered as
inflexible, rigid and predetermined set of rules ( Vinnitskaya, 2013). Lewis (2013) also stated
that zoning also lag or almost outdated to follow the current development, in which he use several
examples based on New York City zoning ordinance, such are: single designated function in city is
inefficient and it is already supersede with many mixed use development, or parking requirement
development for retail area which also ridiculous because in recent people prefer using public
transport rather than private cars. Both of them agreed that urban planning must drop zoning in
term of urban planning and use more of about goals and aspirations based on diversity in the local
community.
Dealing with this changing reality, an example in New York City showed that at some point, zoning
ordinance as a fixed used and statutory regulation seems not able to follow the changing times, this
also happens for Jakarta City case in the future if Jakarta City planners only use their zoning
ordinance as a basis of building permit. Changing the ordinances so it could follow the land owner
aspirations could resulted in long process of petition or legal process. In this condition, planners
have a great responsibility to bridge those two (almost) opposite reality. By using a complex
adaptive system, planners can focus on detail geographical scale of planning to enhance the
flexibility of the zoning ordinance with still regarding the actors aspirations in one point without
forgetting the citys goals. Planners must not forget, that strict rule and practice to conserve and
preserve important city landscapes must be accompanied with the flexibility in another part of the
city to grow without neglecting city sustainability. In this instance, Singapore can be used as an
example. To adapt with future uncertainty, Singapore already introduced white zoning in several
parts of their area to accommodate flexibility of the land use development which cannot be
foreseen in the time when the zoning ordinances was created (Yee and Ng, 2007).
But at some point, planners also must aware that planning also have a tight connection with the
governance system. In order to implement a complex adaptive system, planners must understand
what type of governance they have to deal with, so therefore they can come up with better
strategies to enhance problem-solving capabilities of the multi-level governance systems. In the
end, as said by Byrne (2003), it was a moral obligation for planners to utilize complexity while
facing uncertainty.

Conclusion
If we take McAdams statement that asserting:
Viewing urbanization through the lens of complexity theory is aptly suited to address
sustainability .. What a planner can do is to: enable persons to think about the present
and visualize a better future (not a utopia) that would lead to a better and more just
urban environment at any scale (McAdams, 2008)
The uncertainty and fast changing condition in the future is one major hindrance for the
implementation of zoning ordinance in urban areas. In my opinion, the emergence of complex
adaptive system to bridging past and current condition with future expectation, are planners
chance to fulfill their obligation to contribute in the successes of the zoning ordinance. Planners
must believe that zoning code was not an holy book that need to followed exactly to the crosses
and dots, but must also come up with some rules on flexibility towards better city development for
the future. In the event of governance system hindrance, planner also must optimistic that the
development of organizational theory will emerge with a better governance system that can be
utilized to the maximum.

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