ABSTRACT
During the early 1980s, a major programme of innovative planning and development control proposals was pioneered in the Madras Metropolitan Area (MMA), sponsored and guided by the Madras Metropolitan Development Authority (MMDA). Two possible new approaches to develop control may be suggested, the first of which moves right away from the traditional zoning approach hitherto followed in the MMA, the second of which is based on the proposals of Chandrasekhara cited earlier. Rather than the whole of MMA being divided up into different use zones with uses therein graded as normal, MMA would be seen as one planning entity with two different types or “islands” of special control located at different places within the one entity. The relevant sections, however, were so open-ended that the style, content and amount of public discussion and consideration of comments was left entirely to the MMDA to determine and there was little encouragement to debate.
