Introduction

Kabul, a city of tremendous growth and urban sprawl with a master plan (JICA master plan) that had failed before in many levels, has now an urban design framework. This new framework, Kabul Urban Design Framework (KUDF) designed by an American design firm named Sasaki, was approved by the high council of Urban Development at the presence of the President himself, dr. Ashraf Ghani, in 1397/5/21. Upon its approval as the city’s new guiding plan, all the previous plans including the previously mentioned master plan were declared invalid.

As the authorities were cherishing the new plan, without the guidelines and zoning by-laws of the previous master plan considering that the new framework had guidelines for building but they were too vast to be applied directly for building certifications, building certification was stopped. Thus uncertified buildings started to emerge at a tremendous rate throughout the city. This was truer for the planned areas of the city than for the slums and organic areas. Therefore there was a great need for developing new building by-laws and zoning regulations following the newly approved framework’s vision and goals.

At this urgency, zoning regulations for Kabul city, for the first time as a separate legal document other than the master plan, was developed for all the formal residential and mixed used zones of the city (the most rapidly developing zones by private sector). Along with these zones all public realms and spaces were identified in order to save them from extortion.

The NEW Urban Design Framework

“The Kabul city urban design framework establishes a vision for how Kabul will grow and evolve in the years to come…Each of the documents within this urban design framework provides strategies and design guidance across a wide range of scales and topics to guide Kabul towards this future.”

M. Ashraf Ghani
President of the Islamic republic of Afghanistan

As quoted, KUDF as the 5th master plan of Kabul city has all the required strategies for orienting the city’s growth and development towards the frameworks vision. But most of these strategies needs careful interpretation according to the context in which they stand, since these strategies are all too broad to be applied directly in the site.

“It is expected that subsequent plans and design proposals will further develop the ideas and strategies put forth in this set of documents. In this sense, it serves as a framework to growth and development, rather than the final word on Kabul’s future.”

M. Ashraf Ghani
President of the Islamic republic of Afghanistan

Kabul City Zoning Plan

Kabul city Zoning Plan and Document was developed in fast response to urban development of formal residential and mix use areas. Thus this plan only answers the most necessary needs of formal residential and mixed use zones of the city. Zoning plan and development guidelines for other uses were scheduled to be developed in the next stages of developing the complete Zoning by-laws for Kabul city.

Kabul city Zoning Plan follows the vision and land use defined in KUDF, and in order to stay on track and use the fastest method for developing a citywide guideline, it follows a multi-staged method of extraction and detailing. First it carefully analyzes the land use determined in the framework and extracts all the formal residential and mix use zones defined in it. Second, it redefines and exacts the extent of each zone in scale of urban blocks, since the original uses arbitrary offsets for defining each zone and does not fit in urban block scale. Third, all the public realms and spaces are identified through careful analysis of previous master and detail plans and are added in the plan. Thus the plan divides all the formal areas of the city in three major zones; Residential (R), Mixed Use (M) and Public (P). Finally, each zone is categorized and coded according to their context and their vision in KUDF.

The Zoning Document and a New Method of Building Certificate

Kabul city Zoning Document contains all the necessary Urban and Architectural by-laws for building in formal areas of the city. Developed considering the method of From-Based Code, the by-laws are more oriented towards maintaining a formal and organized Urban Form rather than having lengthy building codes.

Along with new guidelines, the Zoning document proposed a new method of building certification. In this new method all the residential zones (except R6) may obtain their Design Guide document after submitting their application to Kabul Municipality. Applications of other zones shall be sent to the Special Case Commission of Kabul Municipality for them to discuss their land ownership, road widening land acquisition requirements, maximum height and so on, before editing and passing the Design guide document to the owner. This stage is also crucial for the owners, since it provides them a chance to present their designs and the benefits they provide for the city in order to bargain for greater Floor Area Ratios (FAR).

Finally, two methods of taxation was introduced in the Zoning document. First FAR tax applicable to all zones; which is the tax of each unit of FAR used more than 1.2. Second, Tax of Land Use Change in mixed use zones that were previously residential areas (according to the previous Master Plans).