A major component of the Gelephu Structure Plan is the distinct Urban Villages, each having its own neighborhood node, or Village Center. An Urban Village is a walkable, cozy, high density urban settlement containing basic amenities and structured around a common open space. Urban villages are communities, within a town or city and contain most of the elements and components that one would find in a rural settlement, plus an express bus stop, post box and many more public and private conveniences.

Village Center

Each Village Center will have a public open space with a toddlers' park at one corner, a chorten, and temple for elders in another area and a nice garden and walk ways. There will also be convenience shops, a restaurant cum bar, cafes, barber shop and beauty salon, basic health unit, minor repair shop for autos, a taxi stand, news stand kiosk and other amenities. Each Village Square will have some office space for a public service, like a police post, post office, sub-library, or any other public facility that may be shared by adjacent Urban Villages. Near a public bus stand there will also be a crèche so that mothers can leave their children and go to the Town Core for shopping, or to a workplace for employment.

Scale of an Urban Village

The maximum comfortable walking distance is about 700 meters, and thus each Urban Village will ideally be about 1.4 kilometers across. However, natural features such as streambeds will also be factors in deciding the actual edges and boundaries of Urban Villages. A mature, fully developed urban village could accommodate up to eight thousand, or even more, inhabitants, averaging four members each. Such Urban villages would cover about two square kilometers each.