Defining hindering factors of the informal settlements in the general regulatory plan of Shkodër municipality.

Author: Artan Kacani
Affiliation:  Polis University

Abstract
This research dates back to the beginning of the first phase of drafting the General Regulatory Plan (GLP) of Shkodër Municipality, January 2016. As stated by the Albanian law ‘On Territorial Planning’, the drafting phase of a GLP follows three processes: deep analysis of the territory, vision and development plan. The most consistent of all three processes is the first. It requires the involvement of different actors in data collection and the ability to merge specific thematic maps. For these reasons, and due to the complexity of the objectives that an actor might have, this research focuses on one specific theme: informal settlements and the role that two actors has during the first process of plan drafting. Many studies have been conducted on the second and third phases, such as critiques of the zoning or political processes that are brought to strategic visions and their applicability. From this perspective, this research is the first attempt to highlight emerging problems that the GLP could solve if it begins with the first process, the deep analysis of territory.
The two actors studied are the Regional Agency of the Legalization, Urbanization and Integration of Informal Areas (ALUIZNI) and its agenda and the municipality and its territorial instruments, such as the General Local Plan, (GLP). The hindering process1 to acquire formal housing from informal housing is mostly a hidden and neglected issue. The classic way to deal with these practices is the last process of the GLP, the development plan. This phase does not include the hindering factors in the analytical data, and it treats them as a unique area to be combined later with the structural units of the zoning tool. By doing this, we lose the main principle of the GLP, that of wealth redistribution and social justice, defined by law 107/2014 "On Planning and Territory Development". The research explains why it is important to integrate the information of both the actors in the first phase of plan drafting with what can be generated later if revenues and public investments are made in a different political decision making process.
By integrating in consecutive layers the various housing emergencies the research calls in action various professionals and decision makers in a planning instrument based on informal area.