Informal Development Due to Market Pressure -- A Case Study on Cyprus and the Role of Land Administration
Results of a detailed two-year research conducted by the authors are presented in this paper. It is shown that, among other reasons, informal constructions also appear in several attractive European areas due to increased market pressure. In the first part an introduction on the current state-of-the-art of informal development in Europe is presented and the findings of the research are given in brief about three Mediterranean countries: Spain, Albania, and Greece. Although the social, economic, administrative and cultural situation and the extent of informal development vary among these countries, current identified major causes for informal development are: migration in search of work and shelter, lack of affordable housing, and increased market pressure combined with inefficient land administration and/or permitting and controlling procedures. In part two of this paper, an in-depth research on Cyprus, a country which had never experienced informal development until recently, is presented. The research aims to focus especially on the risk due to increased market interest, whose economic benefits overwhelm even the long established regulatory systems for the management and administration of land. 
This original research shows that informal development is emerging in Cyprus as well. This very new phenomenon is caused by the rapid national and international market pressure in both urban and rural areas of the island. A description of the land administration tools and the procedures regulating land development is given; weaknesses of the system to meet the current needs are identified; and proposals for its improvement are offered. Relevant statistics are derived through a research on the cadastral and planning data. It is proved that recent interest in popular areas often leads to informal development.Considerations are presented concerning the importance of a continuously upgrading multipurpose and reliable land administration and regulatory system, which is vital for the security of tenure, the support of the emerging market needs, and for providing for sustainable land-uses.
Urban Land Governance: “Action Space”, Legitimacy of and Intervention Strategies for Urban Informal Settlements in Nepal
At the global level, the informal settlements are in a dichotomy of legal and illegal debates. This paper analyzes the issue of informal settlements from the legitimacy perspective. It reveals that, although the settlements are not in legal legitimacy, there is tendency of social legitimacy. The challenges of urban land governance are in how to minimize the gap between legal legitimacy and social legitimacy. Firstly, this paper explores on how the actions of government and non-government organizations contribute towards legitimacy. To achieve this aim, the analytical framework of “action space” is applied. Secondly, it focuses on identifying intervention strategies that narrow the gap between legal legitimacy and social legitimacy. We studied two cases of informal settlements: the rst is to explore the gap and the second is to explain the intervention strategies. The results show, that due to lack of “action space” of government actors towards legal legitimacy, the civil society actors created their own “action space” which ultimately triggered social legitimacy. In addition to civil society, the actions of local authorities are found to contribute towards social legitimacy as well. To narrow the gap, the identi ed intervention strategies are discussed within the scope of land policy, land tenure security and land development.
Use of Knowledge Based Systems for the Detection and Monitoring of Unplanned Developments
Within the context of an urban land use, two general status can be distinguished namely developed land (residential, industrial area, construction area, etc), and reserved land (forest, water bodies, garden, parks, open area etc). However, not all developed land is legal or formal a phenomena prevalent in developing countries. For the planners it is important to have the capacity to detect, localize and predict the trend of this phenomena in order to facilitate reaction planning. In this regard, the main objective of this study is to develop a methodology that exploits existing planning data and urban land use drivers in combination with remotely sensed imagery for the detection and quantification of unplanned developments and subsequently facilitate in monitoring their trends. Since planning is a continuous process, remotely sensed data lends itself to a good source of information pertaining to the extent of developed and reserved areas at any given epoch. The methodology has been sub-divided into four modules, namely the interpretation, detection, trend prediction and the evaluation. Knowledge based image interpretation, namely rule based system was employed in the extraction of developed and reserved areas from multispectral image data. As input into the interpretation process four image cues i.e. NDVI, Texture, Edge Density, and unsupervised classification have been tested. Experience has shown that data reduction and refinement prior to its incorporation in the knowledge base enables few rules to be established and thereby minimizing rule correlation. However, knowledge representation is a challenge and especially when it involves rules association. Acceptable results have been obtained which imply that such a technique is promising. Additional information e.g. GIS data would nevertheless be useful as a guide in the extraction of objects like parking areas and some complex built up areas (e.g. buildings), roads, etc thus improving the results. For the detection of unplanned developments, the constraints of planning data has been exploited. Specifically, planning data has been used in combination with remotely sensed data depicting As It Were situation to generate As It Should Be scenario with specific emphasis on the new legal/allowable developments. This formed a backdrop for the detection of unplanned developments, which essentially translates to the difference between the As It Should Be situation and As It IS within the planning and implementation time frame. Prototype experiments carried out show that this is a feasible technique and can easily be implemented for fast detection in comparison to the current ad hoc field techniques. In the trend prediction of unplanned developments, land use drivers based on compatibility of land uses, transport network, and hydrography sources are used to establish their influence on the new developed areas. Results show that existing land uses influence highly new developed areas. A combination effect of these influences (land use drivers) when employed results in stratification of pressure zones into fuzzy blocks ranging from those which are likely to undergo extensions of unplanned developments to those which are unlikely. Such information could enable planners develop a program in preparation for such eventualities and prioritise areas that require urgent reaction planning. For the evaluation of the results, both qualitative and quantitative evaluation techniques have been tested namely visual comparison, polygon-pixel count and kappa index. Comparable results have been obtained based on these three techniques for the interpretation and detection modules. The choice of which technique to apply depends on the application and the level of detail required. In conclusion, this study has demonstrated that a ‘complete package’ that will enable planners to detect and predict the trend of unplanned developments is feasible. In order to ensure success, planning should be viewed as a collective responsibility, where all stakeholders are participants. Further, sound land law system that ensures land accessibility and security of tenure as well as promote transparency in land allocation issues should be implemented and enforced.