This project offers a contemporary approach
to upgrading informal settlements based on low impact
landscape infrastructural solutions. Architecture, urban
planning, and engineering are the traditional professions
that have addressed issues of informal urbanization.
However, this project demonstrates the role that landscape
architecture can play in not only addressing public
health and environmental issues but also in functioning
as a catalyst for macro and micro enterprises.
Definition:
Informal settlements are lands that are settled
by people or organizations that do not have legal claim
or title to the land and are developed without permission
from any government agency. Informal settlements often
lack basic infrastructure and urban services like roads,
drainage and waste collection. These settlements are
vulnerable to environmental disasters, social unrest,
and disease due to their physical, social, and psychological
marginalization.
Introduction
In the next 25 years, the world’s population
is expected to grow by 2 billion people, with 94 % of
this growth in urban areas in Africa, Asia, and Latin
America and the Caribbean. As cities in the developing
world grow so do informal or squatter settlements. In
2003 according to UN Habitat report the world population
of squatter dwellers is 175 million people. In many
African cities like Nairobi, around 70% of the population
lives in informal settlements on the fringe of the city.
The emergence of informal settlements is reaching epidemic
proportions as urbanization increases rapidly. While
the problem of informal settlements in Kingston and
the nation may not be as critical as in other Latin
American and Caribbean countries, in Jamaica it is perceived
as a major problem that contributes to the country’s
poor economic performance, poverty, and social inequality.
Informal urbanization also hampers the government’s
ability to plan for growth, provide infrastructure and
services. In Jamaica there are 600,000 people who do
not have legal title to the homes they live in; they
represent 25 % of the nation’s population.
The nation and the capital are in a position
to deal with the situation of informal housing settlement
before it becomes unmanageable. Jamaica’s economic
growth has not taken off and economic goals and private
enterprise will not over shadow national agendas.
In order to support and make provisions
for low-income residential communities in the developing
countries, initial focus should be placed on landscape
infrastructure rather than housing units. It has been
proven that people can provide shelter for themselves
but the more costly, infrastructure is more difficult
and traditional urban infrastructure is not a realistic
environmental or financial goal for cities in the developing
world.
The goal of this project is to provide
landscape typologies based on low impact development
for both infrastructure and public facilities and to
demonstrate how such development types can provide opportunities
for macro and micro enterprises. The intention of this
project is not to create master plan for a new community
at Riverton but rather to respect the existing fabric
and networks that have already been established and
to insert infrastructure and facilities into the community.
Riverton is an informal settlement located
on the western edge of Kingston, on top of the municipal
dump. Riverton is hemmed in by two highways that serve
the surrounding industrial areas. The community is one
of the most notorious inner city communities in Jamaica.
Riverton, like other informal settlements, faces the
following issues: land use conflicts; pollution; insecure
tenure ; no or inadequate infrastructure; few municipal
services; little improvement in physical fabric over
time; social and political tension; illegal drug trade;
and social marginalization. Analysis included looking
at existing environmental, political and socio-economic
conditions in order to understand the events that led
to the establishment of Riverton, and its continued
existence. Also studied were the fabric and physical
patterns that had been established, patterns of informal
settlements from around the world, and the flow of material
to and from Riverton.
Background
The earliest settlement at Riverton dates back
to the 1930s when a group of Rastafarians from the rural
areas in Jamaica began to dump garbage into the swamp
and set up a camp on the filled land. Due to natural,
economic, and socio-political events, the population
and the physical settlement have varied over time. Many
people at Riverton make their living from scavenging
from the municipal dump. This informal economic activity
is the main economic one for residents at Riverton.
In the late 1990s the government of Jamaica nationalized
its solid waste management companies and the decision
was made to construct a clean land fill just south of
the existing dump. This decision led to a planning effort
to build a new community in phases with 2,000 new housing
units at Riverton. In 2001, the first phase of the project
that would, in addition to housing units, provide traditional
infrastructure and street lights was abandoned after
the funds designated for the project ran out. This project
is a reaction to the failures of past master plans.
Economically feasible plans that are not entirely dependent
on municipal, national, and bi-lateral aid agency for
funding and implementation and focus solely on housing
units are needed.
Issues
Both public health and environmental issues relate to
water: potable water, ground water contamination, river
pollution, and insufficient drainage. 95% of the population
is served by one standpipe. Stagnant water accumulates
and has led to the first outbreak of malaria the nation
has seen in forty years. The few drains that exist are
clogged with garbage. The clogged drains as well as
the topography of the site, causes flooding during periods
of heavy rain. Riverton is also vulnerable to seasonal
hurricanes. The Duhaney River and the water table are
contaminated from the operation of the dump and the
rearing of animals on the banks of the river. This project
creates sets of criteria under the general categories
of: public health, environment, community organization,
socio-political conditions, and economic generation.
Government agencies and community organizations can
use these criteria to identify and rank issues that
can be addressed through landscape infrastructure interventions.
A series of interventions are proposed that speak to
the lack of potable water, drainage, contamination of
the river and water table, and lack of opportunities
for people to earn an income. These interventions provide
opportunities for micro and macro scale enterprises.
Landscape Approach
Based on the criteria and analysis, the first priority
is to deal with critical issue of the provision of infrastructure
for residential areas. This includes: composting toilets
to be provided for homes that do not have one within
their lot, a defined area for temporary sorting of recycling
materials, and standpipes within 100 meters of all residential
lots. Additional programs for the standpipe area include,
but are not limited to, public bathing facilities, rainwater
harvesting, waste collection areas, laundry areas, and
mail box and drop off. During this initial critical
phase, all residential and animal rearing activities
should be removed from within 100 meters of the river
to provide space for a constructed wetland that will
duplicate as play fields at a later stage. An example
of opportunities for micro enterprises that could take
place with the addition of standpipes at key locations
is the possibility for people to operate small businesses
such as laundry services or food preparation that would
require easy access to water. These locations can also
serve as drop off locations for household waste, a micro
enterprise based on recycling or composting can take
place. In rural villages in Jamaica the areas around
the standpipe functioned as gathering spots for the
community, areas where people would go to catch up on
the latest news. The standpipe areas would also have
this social function.
The second stage is the provision of major
infrastructure works and a proposition for a macro scale
economic catalyst. Surface run off is handled in one
of three ways: for streets 3 meters or less surface
sewer drains will be constructed and the water will
collect in lagoons. On streets that are larger than
3 meters, run-off will be directed to storm water planters.
During a major rain event water will overflow into the
lagoons or constructed wetlands. The third way in which,
water is handled, is through the design of three water
filters that also function as linear parks that will,
in the event of a major storm, overflow into the constructed
wetland located on the eastern side of the Duhaney River.
When the new landfill is completed, the dump can be
converted into a windrow composting facility and there
is additional space to accommodate a resource, recovery
and recycling facility. The remaining area can be reserved
for the sorting of paper. The composting facility can
produce enough organic material to be used in the operation
of the new landfill and for sale. There is enough space
at the converted dump to formalize and expand the informal
recycling that has been occurring; scrap metal, glass
and plastic that can then be resold, reused, or recycled.
Jamaica currently does not have plastic or glass recycling
facilities. In keeping with government goals to reduce
garbage, this project proposes using the under utilized
industrial lands that are a part of Riverton to promote
recycling industries.
The third stage would be provision of
serviced lots. Given the landscape infrastructure that
has been laid out, 153 new residential lots could be
accommodated in Riverton at the southern end of the
site. Riverton has always been a self-sufficient and
self-governed community and the proposed landscape infrastructure
interventions that are based in low impact development
addresses identified issues in the community while still
maintaining the community’s independence because
the of the low cost of the infrastructure and its easy
maintenance. This project can serve as a case study
for how future upgrading projects can be designed. It
also represents a new opportunity for the profession
of landscape architecture in cities in the developing
world.
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