PROPOSALS FOR ACTION

Amenities and services are essential to the establishment and smooth functioning of any settlement. These amenities, primarily in the form of educational, health and community facilities are essential services that an urban area is obliged to extend to its population, for the facilitation of an improved basic standard of living within the settlement. One of the main objectives of the Gelephu Structure Plan is the sequential allocation and development of amenities and services to prioritize potential growth areas within the town. Other objectives include the provision of basic amenities and services in all the identified Urban Villages / Urban Neighborhoods to allow the town to function effectively as a network of self-contained urban units and to enable phased prioritization of these Urban Villages / Urban Neighborhoods for the establishment of Village Squares and other essential amenities.

For this reason, the Gelephu Structure Plan established a hierarchy of amenities and services ranging from the Urban Village / Urban Neighborhood level, to the town level, which will facilitate achieving the envisioned pattern of development characterized by a series of self-contained Urban Villages / Urban Neighborhoods.

The provision of these facilities is eventually done by the Competent Departments in the required hierarchies, to encourage and facilitate the parent social function to permeate into the population. For instance, the establishment and acceptance of education as an important component of the social process, necessitates the provision of different hierarchies of educational facilities, to cater to all the component age groups of the concerned population. Similarly, the other factors affecting the “social existence” of any population are the factors governing its health (physical and mental), and, the facilities for managing the law and order of society.

Though the distribution of amenities and services within Gelephu town is based on population characteristics, the spatial organization of the town’s landscape has a crucial role to play in determining the distribution character of the proposal. Gelephu, being envisioned as a Growth Centre for the region, will also demand a different hierarchy of amenities and services far beyond the population character of the town. The determinants and factors which govern the distribution of amenities and services in Gelephu town are summarized below.

The population of Gelephu is currently distributed in a scattered manner, over the town’s landscape with the major concentration being in Gelephu Town Core. The current facilities existing in the town have been created considering their utilization status as a regional and Dungkhag headquarters. Gelephu and its surrounding, being conceptualized as a thriving Growth Centre and as a Special Economic Region of the country, will demand amenities and facilities catering to the larger catchment population exceeding far beyond the Dzongkhag Administration boundary.

The proposal adopts the growth strategy formulated for the Structure Plan and bases its proposed locations of amenities on the “population holding capacities” of the Urban Village / Urban Neighborhood areas put forth in the Structure Plan. For each public service there are a minimum number of users to make it “viable.”

For example, a primary school with three students in it will never cover the operational costs. Thus, there are “threshold populations” for services like education and health to become viable. Accordingly, the actions have been broken into sets of establishment, considering the current or anticipated population characteristics of each Urban Village / Urban Neighborhood.

The spatial organization of the town emerged as a result of the past development activities, location of existing amenities and services, and the dominant government land holdings within the town. These factors have a strong influence on the proposal. Though integrating various fragmented parts of the urban fabric is conceptualized as an integral part of the Structure Plan, the location of amenities and services within the town is greatly influenced by the above mentioned circumstances.

One of the main objectives of the Gelephu Structure Plan is the establishment of self-sustainable urban communities within the town. The distribution pattern of the amenities and services proposed in the Structure Plan will be used as a major governing factor towards achieving the above mentioned goal. Some of the development strategies adopted include,

5.10.2 Amenities and services located with in a Urban Village / Urban Neighborhood

A pattern of basic amenities and services located in the Urban Villages / Urban Neighborhoods towards making them self-sustainable units will form the first hierarchy in the Gelephu Structure Plan. These would be the amenities and services that are essential for the establishment and functioning of any residential community and would essentially be of smaller scale, which will serve the daily needs of the community.

These facilities will include basic health, education, commerce, transportation, recreation and sports and will be the essential components of a proposed Village Square. The Village Squares will be surrounded by high residential density development, which will provide needed population thresholds for the facilities to function properly. The Village Squares will function as nerve centers of the Urban Village / Urban Neighborhoods, gathering social activities and interactions between all age groups of the resident population. Starting from toddlers in the nurseries and crèches, located in the Village Squares, to adults who come to pick up their children on their way back home from work, or those who come to collect their post, or to shop, or to just sit in the garden, the Village Square will act as a social gathering place.

The amenities and services that a Village Square would house could be categorized under the following heads:

Table 5.12 : Proposed Amenities and Services in an Urban Village / Urban Neighborhood

Category	Nature of facility	Benefit and social purpose served
Health	Neighborhood clinic	Elementary treatment and medication.
Education	Nursery school and crèche	Elementary education and play facilities for the youngest segment of the population.
Recreation	Toddlers park, garden	Place for recreation and play for the younger segments of the population and would also act as a place for chance meetings if coupled successfully with the commercial facility.
Essential Commerce	Convenience shopping	For easy access to basic daily needs of grocery, medicines, vegetables etc.
Public Conveniences	Post collection center, Phone Booth, library, News paper Stand, ATM Centre, Community Hall, Lhakhang and Internet Café, Notice Board, Space for Community welfare organizations	These would more importantly serve as popular meeting places for all age groups and would catalyze and spur chance interactions.
Public Utilities	Public toilets, Water storage reservoirs and Back - up supply pumping facilities, solid waste collection bin	Provision of essential public utilities to support and serve community areas like the shopping area, public garden etc.
Transportation	Taxi stand, Parking lot, Transit stop	These facilities would cater to the transportation needs of the Urban Village.
Public management	Police post, Fire service	Establishment of a governing authority at the lowest possible level of the town structure.

The purpose behind the establishment of Village Squares and defining their composition as a conglomeration of these essential amenities is to create activity nodes in each Urban Village / Urban Neighborhood. These will function as magnets in attracting the population. This will also encourage and make possible informal social interaction within the resident population, thus establishing each Village Square as the primary Social space of the town.

The primary idea of establishing an Urban Core is to create a commercial center with all the public facilities. The Urban Hub envisioned in the Gelephu Urban Core will not only serve the population of the local area but also the population of the town and the entire region. The commercial areas and Public facilities will also help in creating the needed urbaneness in the Gelephu town.

The Urban Hub can act either as a destination, or as a facility hub, with facilities for ‘modal split’ within the entire framework of transport suggested for Gelephu town in the Structure Plan. Thus, transport facilities in the future, like an inter-town bus terminus; local level public transport, and a large taxi stand, will connect the Urban Hub with the rest of the town and the region. Public parking will be accommodated within the Hub. People in other parts of the town, can drive to the Hub acting as a workplace and as a center for commercial, recreational facilities. They can enjoy the pedestrian oriented environment proposed within the Urban Hub.

This will include the town level and local level commercial activities like shopping arcades, departmental stores, bookshops, net cafés, bars, restaurants and cafeterias. It would also house private and public office spaces required for the growing business community in the town with the envisioned Special Economic Development Zone in the region. Based upon the development control regulations, there will be separate guidelines to control the ground coverage and height of these commercial buildings. There should be urban design controls for the massing and facades of these buildings. There should be provisions to accommodate plot level parking either in basements, or under stilts. Apart from this, every commercial building should have off-street parking in the front to accommodate the visitor’s vehicle parking.

As a regional growth center, Gelephu will act as a wholesale center, serving retailers in the entire catchment area. This will require “go-downs” for storage. Small scale production activities, like printing presses and cereal milling, must be provided for.

This will include town level recreational facilities like cinema theatre, auditorium, bowling alleys, etc. These facilities can be under private ownership. The recreational component also includes town level sports facilities like the existing football ground, indoor sporting facilities, tennis and basketball courts, archery field, etc. A system of open spaces connecting all the sporting facilities is also proposed within the Urban Village as a part of the Environmental Conservation Precinct.

This includes the public facilities provided by the government like a hospital, post office, banks, fire station, fuel services, etc. The existing vegetable market is proposed to be up-graded with the provision of additional facilities for cold storage and parking. A new town hall is proposed as a part of the Urban Hub. Most of the public conveniences at present are provided and maintained by the government and are proposed to be up-graded considering the future needs. All these public buildings are distributed along the proposed Royal Boulevard, which will help in visually organizing the central spine by controlling the visual massing and facades of these public buildings through Urban Design guidelines.

The Urban Hub / Urban Core proposed in Gelephu provides for the following amenities:

Table 5.13: List of Amenities and Facilities Proposed in the Urban Hub / Urban Core

Amenity	Details
Commercial Plots (private ownership)	Department stores, clinics, crèches, private hospitals, general merchandise, hardware stores, variety of shops, restaurants, bars, discos, libraries, bowling alleys, net cafés, ATM centre etc.
Offices	Corporate offices, professional suites, studios, agencies.
Inter-town Bus Stop ( in future )	Bus parking, Waiting area for passengers, Refreshment facilities, Public toilets, parking facilities.
Hospital and Urban Village Level Clinic	Up-gradation of the existing Gelephu General Hospital with additional facilities.
Vegetable Market	Up-grading the Vegetable Market with additional facilities like, Parking area, Vegetable stalls, cold storage facilities, other storage facilities, waste disposal and public toilet facilities.
Taxi Stand	To accommodate about 30 taxis.
Police Station	Up-gradation of the existing Royal Bhutan Police campus with adequate parking space for vehicles and a temporary jail.
Post Office and Telecommunications Center.	Up-gradation of the existing post office and telecommunication centre with facilities like, post boxes, telephone booths, telephone billing center, internet facilities, parking facilities.
Town Hall	Seating area for 500 people, parking , lounges, green rooms, transformer and generator facilities, public toilets etc.
Cinema Hall	Up-gradation of the existing Losal Cinema hall with seating area for 500 people, parking, lounges, refreshment facilities, entertainment facilities, public toilets, etc. New plot for future Multi-plex development.
Sports Complex	Up-gradation of the existing football ground with provision for new sports facilities like tennis, basket ball, volley ball, etc. Up-gradation of the Gelephu Sports Association hall with in-door sports facilities like badminton, swimming pool, etc.
Recreation	Facilities for pool tables, caroms, cards, bowling alley, wedding hall, clubs, etc. which could be developed as a part of the commercial plots.
Fire Station	Proposed as a part of the Royal Bhutan Police campus with parking and maneuvering areas for at least three 4000-gallon fire tender trucks. Facilities for water storage of at least 30000 gallons capacity tanks.
Service and fuel station	Up-gradation of the existing BOD fuel station with additional storage facilities for petroleum products, basic service facilities, telephone and fire fighting facilities and automobile work shops, recyclable waste store room. Creation of Service based industries zone along the Gelephu-Sarpang Urban Corridor.
Parking	Parking lots at strategic locations, road side parking facilities and plot level parking.
Public and Government Institutions	Plots for the establishment of future government and public institutions.
Spiritual and Heritage	Up-gradation of the Tarpolling Guru Lhakhang and its surroundings, reservation of areas within the local area for the establishment of future heritage structures, Up-gradation of Tshewang Goempa and its surroundings, Up-gradation of the Shiva temple and its surroundings.
Plazas and Green Areas	Includes open spaces, plazas, green areas, part pedestrianization of Norkil Lam with provision for plazas.
Go-downs and bulk storage facilities for government and private wholesaling entrepreneurs	Re-location of FCB and other go-downs in to the Service Based Industries Zone with additional facilities like parking area, cold storage, bulk storage, etc.

The second hierarchy of Amenities and Services proposed in the Gelephu Structure Plan will cater to the needs of the town. The existing Gelephu Sports Association hall is a good example of this kind. An efficient structure of these facilities within the town mainly depends on the grade of the facilities provided and the degree of accessibility to these facilities by the town population. The essential character which differentiates these town level amenities from the Urban Village / Urban Neighborhood level amenities is that, these amenities have to be planned considering the whole of the town as the elementary unit, with the assumption that these amenities will be mutually shared between neighboring Urban Villages / Urban Neighborhoods, in the case of intermediary grade facilities, or over the whole town population.

As a step further towards identifying the kind of amenities and facilities needed to be provided for the Gelephu population in the coming decades, with respect to the demographic projection, a detailed study of standards has been carried out that has been elaborated earlier in the report. The types and scale of each facility to be provided in Gelephu, as an outcome of the studies, needs to be planned in reference to the growth of population in the town. The attempt in the Structure Plan is to facilitate and enable easy access to all the grades of facilities provided in Gelephu for the entire town population. These will include facilities like a central town hall, town level library, a college and open spaces requirement for the future population.

The strategies for the provision of recommended amenities and services within the town has been outlined according to estimates of the future population accommodation in each of the Urban Village / Urban Neighborhood, as per the designated density characteristics, as explained in the earlier chapter.

Hence, a phased scenario of population has not been projected for the whole town. Accordingly, in case of the amenities also the maximum population that could be accommodated has been considered for decisions on the required grade of facilities. But, it would not be accompanied with phasing scenarios, as it would be unrealistic, as per the characteristics of the growth strategy adopted.

Instead, it would be appropriate to set standards of population thresholds after which, any facility would have to be up-graded to the next higher level (The population thresholds for up-gradation with reference to population thresholds have been mentioned in chapter four). As has been discussed earlier, the whole growth strategy of the town has been structured into a set of Urban Villages, each one of which would be self-contained with regards to basic social amenities and facilities.

Thus, arriving at a series of self-contained urban neighborhoods, and in the process, decentralizing and distributing the amenities in a balanced manner in the town’s landscape would be the main strategy advocated in the Structure Plan. This will also help in lessening the burden on existing higher-grade of facilities within the town.