| |  |
| Land
Ownership Problem |  |
Another major
constraint is the ownership characteristic of land in the city.
The majority of the land is privately owned and, therefore, the
implementation of urban redevelopment programmes confronted with
difficult problems because such actions often require the acquisition
of private properties. This involved a complicated legal and administrative
process. Also 50% of it total population live in low income settlements
consuming 11% of its total city land. (Map
11)
|
Shortage of Buildable Land & Low Density |
|
A shortage
of buildable lands exists in the City of Colombo. The Colombo
City is also faced with the problem of lack of buildable land
presently about 38% of the land is under residential, 13% public
and semi-public, 17% transport and 10% water bodies. The solution
to the buildable land problem within the city is to shift defence,
administrative related activities to Kotte. These establishments
which occupy large extents of land could be used for more economically
viable activities. The horizontal expansion of the city and the
unplanned distribution of residential, commercial and other activities
into the suburbs have caused serious difficulties in the provision
of urban services, but also increasing the cost of providing such
services because the area that these services need to be covered
is much wider. (Map12 & Map
13)
| Transportation |
|
The main existing
deficiencies of the transportation system are.
· Congested traffic movement in the City Centre.
· Lack of vehicular and pedestrian traffic segregation
· Insufficient parking facilities.
· Inefficient railway network and system.
· Weak and inefficient public mass transport system.
· Heavy dependence on private vehicles, cars and motor
bicycles.
The intra-regional connection of roads do not have a significant
impact on the development as the roads are narrow and in poor
condition due to lack of maintenance. Lack of a proper transport
linkages between the north and south parts of the country is another
problem faced in the transportation sector. In addition connection
between the west in the City and the east (suburbs) is increasing
due to growth of population in the eastern suburbs. Container
movement at peak hours create an acute traffic problem in the
city. At present container yards are located all over the city
and suburbs.
| 
