Tbilisi has numerous problems in terms of urban development. One of the reasons for this is that Tbilisi has not had a General Land Use Plan, guiding its development, for the last several years. The last General Land Use Plan for the development of the capital city was approved in 1971 and was in force until 2000. Moreover, no urban development plans have been elaborated since Georgia’s independence. Certain steps in this direction were only taken in 2009 when a General Plan for the Prospective Development of Tbilisi was adopted.

The current Mayor of Tbilisi, Davit Narmania, discussed this flaw and the need for revising the existing plan in his pre-election programme. Tbilisi City Hall made a decision about reviewing the General Land Use Plan only a year after Mr Narmania was elected (29 April 2015) and tasked the Architecture Department with holding a competition for the revision of Tbilisi’s General Land Use Plan.

Tbilisi City Hall’s Architecture Department announced the competition for the revision of the General Land Use Plan in May 2015. A total of 11 propositions were registered in this international competition. City of the Future, an international union of legal entities, succeeded in winning the competition. City of the Future is made up of nine partners, including six foreign organisations.

FactCheck interviewed Mamuka Salukvadze, the Director of one of the companies from the City of the Future group – City Institute Georgia, about the importance and essence of Tbilisi’s General Land Use Plan.

According to Mr Salukvadze, all of the components which are important for the city’s urban development will be taken into account whilst drawing up a new General Land Use Plan. In particular, the plan must determine a clear strategy for the transformation of public areas as well as the size and height of constructions.

In his interview with us, Mr Salukvadze also explained that the new plan will aim at stopping the chaos which we have in the city today. As Tbilisi does not have a document for the protection and development of public spaces, violations have been occurring for decades. The most alarming of the violations comprise the agreements made with regard to construction projects in recreational areas. The revised General Land Use Plan will label the embankments of the Mtkvari River, city gardens, parks, squares and other green areas as separate typological zones with appropriate plans and protection mechanisms.

Further in our interview, Mr Salukvadze also focused upon the problems in the Rules of Regulation for the Usage and Development of Tbilisi City Territories. According to these rules, for example, it is possible to buy a municipal development coefficient in terms of the zone agreement and the Mayor of Tbilisi is authorised to give a construction permit in a zone with a completely different purpose (for example, in parks and squares). In order to eradicate these shortcomings, City Institute Georgia presented Tbilisi City Hall with a revised plan which includes limiting the size and height of constructions and immediately banning the issuance of construction permits in recreational areas of the city. Furthermore, the revisions suggest granting several territories with the status of recreational areas. The company has also requested the placing of a temporary stoppage on the development of certain territories in the city whilst the drafting process of the General Land Use Plan is still in progress.

Transport infrastructure is also a very important aspect of an urban plan. According to Mr Salukvadze’s statement, the pace of developing Tbilisi’s transport infrastructure is not able to catch up with the growth of the number of personal automobiles in the city which means that road development alone will be insufficient for resolving the transportation problem. Hence, the development of public transport must take precedence in this specific case. It must become fast, affordable and comfortable. City Institute Georgia’s revised plan proposes the pilot Fast Bus project. The Fast Bus will have its own lane on the road and a well-planned transportation schedule. In addition, re-introducing the European style trams is another one of the recommendations (in fact, such a project already exists).

Mamuka Salukvadze also spoke about large-scale infrastructural projects as a part of the General Land Use Plan. He explained that Tbilisi will have a general development plan in 18 months beginning from October 2015. Naturally, neither large-scale infrastructural projects nor any constructions can be stopped before the new plan is completed. Hence, the company has already presented City Hall with appropriate changes regarding the implementation of these particular projects.

As for the large-scale infrastructural projects, such as the bypass railway, there is no alternative to removing the railway line from the city as it makes for the opportunity to create a new centre which will be much more interesting and attractive than the current one. As for the Panorama Tbilisi project, Mr Salukvadze commented that independent foreign experts have been invited to study the proposed project and City Institute Georgia will use the results of this study in its evaluation of the project.

Additionally within the interview, Mr Salukvadze also discussed the difficulties in managing the General Land Use Plan. The main challenge is not its creation but, rather, its management process. "In the general plan, we have set out certain constraints regarding how the city must not be developed. However, even if this document is ideal in every way, it will not change much unless it is turned into a law," he said.

FactCheck also took interest in the involvement of the public in the creation of the General Land Use Plan. The city.kvira.ge

website is covering the new plan’s creation process. According to its information, a public council has been created upon the initiative of City Institute Georgia which is comprised of specialists from various fields. The public council has already held four sessions since it was established. The council’s aim is to facilitate the involvement and coordination of interested parties in the creation of the General Land Use Plan and provide them with necessary information.

We asked an independent Tbilisi City Council member, Aleko Elisashvili, to comment upon the creation process of the General Land Use Plan. Mr Elisashvili pointed out that he has acquainted himself with the major concepts of the proposed plan and believes that its authors have an adequate understanding of the problems facing the capital city at the moment. However, Mr Elisashvili also believes that the most important point is that this plan indeed turns into a real document which will define the capital city’s future development. However, he does not believe that the current Tbilisi City Hall administration can guarantee that this will happen.

FactCheck

also asked an urbanist, Lado Vardosanidze, for his comments regarding this issue. Mr Vardosanidze stated that he knows the vision of the company working on the revised General Land Use Plan very well and agrees with the main priorities. He will later be involved in the creation of the plan himself and provided consultations to the working group on urban issues. According to Mr Vardosanidze, the city will receive a modern general development plan in the agreed period of time; however, he also points out that the existence of the document does not in itself guarantee its success as the management and implementation of the general plan is vital. As he further explained, the problem is not the creation of the plan but turning it into a functioning law. The problem in turning the plan into the law, he added, "is the tall building near Saakadze Square" (Tbilisi City Hall).

In this context it is interesting to examine one fact – City Institute Georgia proposed changes to the current rules regulating construction to Tbilisi City Hall in January. At the 17 February Cabinet meeting, the Mayor of Tbilisi stated that City Hall would present the revised version of the regulation rules to Tbilisi City Council in the nearest future.  We took interest in whether or not the aforementioned changes have been presented to the Council. As the Head of the Urban Planning and Municipal Utilities Commission of Tbilisi City Council, Gocha Babunashvili, told us, no such initiative has been admitted to the Council as of yet. It should be pointed out that it has been two months since the group working on the General Land Use Plan presented these changes to City Hall and one-and-a-half months after Davit Narmania’s statement where he promised to present the changes to Tbilisi City Council in the nearest future.

Interim Conclusion As has already been pointed out earlier, Tbilisi will have a document determining its future development in about a year. According to the assessment of specialists, the work on the creation of the plan is proceeding in the right direction; however, a strategy on paper alone will not be able to resolve the problems facing the capital city. It must become a legal document which will define Tbilisi’s future development. Tbilisi City Hall is the only guarantee for turning the plan into a law (however, City Hall has not been very active in this regard as of yet). Otherwise, the city’s general development plan will be unable to bring about real changes and remain a strategy only on paper.