Urban areas lack proper planning

 By MIRIAM MALAWA

THERE are no proper planning for towns and cities in the country, director and chairman of the office of urbanisation Max Kep said. 

Kep was speaking during his presentation at the PNG Association of Physical Planners forum last Friday.

He said they were the victims of the lack of planning and that most of development taking place were based on economic plans and not on geographical aspects or space.

“Economic plan must complement geographical plan or physical space of a city or town,” Kep said.

“This has been neglected for a while and has a consequence, we are not progressing.”

He said the physical planning department played a major role in nation building but little was heard about physical planners because were “a dying profession”. 

He said they had taken a back seat and needed to do something about it.

The forum was also to support the launching of association this year to act as a body to promote and protect the professional physical planners. 

The forum was sponsored by the Office of Urbanisation.

The association’s interim president Elias Masta said the forum was to shape and secure a united voice for physical planning professionals. 

“The planning profession with its development tool empowered by the Physical Planning Act and supported by regulated development standards can assist this nation and its vulnerable environment,” he said.