Sandbox

Entity::The Working Committee on Entity::TDC restructuring

To: The Auroville community
Sub: TDC restructuring

A few responses have been received on our proposal for the restructuring of Town Development Council also known as L’Avenir d’Auroville, which was published in the News &Notes and on Auronet.

On the basis of the responses received, we have revised our proposal as below. We invite the community to send its feedback on this revised proposal. Thereafter, the proposal and considered feedback will be submitted to the Governing Board for a decision in its meeting in October.

Proposal for a restructuring of the TDC (revised)

1. The present system of TDC coordinators of various work areas is discontinued.
2. A Town Development Service (TDS) is created, consisting of 5 or more individuals, as decided by the Residents’ Assembly, working full-time, who prepare and execute the decisions of the TDC. The TDS is the technical office of the TDC.
3. A full-time senior Urban Planner is employed to supervise the work of the TDS and deal systematically with the many different aspects of planning the City. Mr. Doshi may be requested to assist in finding a suitable person. The senior planner will be member of the TDS.
4. The TDC is re-constituted as a working group which takes all decisions regarding the work of the TDC, as prepared by the TDS and otherwise, and to which the TDS reports.
5. The TDC will consist of (maximum) 9 Aurovilians, the 5 TDS members, the senior urban planner, and the Chairman.
6. The TDC will be chaired by Mr. B.V. Doshi or his appointed representative.
7. The TDC meets as and when required, but at least once every two weeks.
8. The name L'avenir d'Auroville will be retained, with the name Town Development Council to be mainly used in external contacts.
9. The TDS will have a staff as considered necessary by the TDC. The TDC may decide that the TDS employ non planning professionals / technical experts who are not Aurovilians.
10. The TDC will take decisions preferably by consensus. In cases where no consensus can be reached, decisions will be taken by majority vote. In case of equality of votes, the Chairman will have a casting vote.
11. The TDC may outsource planning and development works to qualified and experienced professionals within or outside Auroville. The criteria for outsourcing work will have to be defined and documented first.

The role of the new TDC will be:

1. To be the ‘client body’ on behalf of Auroville for all planning, development and infrastructural work to be done.
2. To obtain community feedback on draft plans, and ensure that such feedback is integrated into final draft plans.
3. To ensure that final draft plans obtain approval of the Residents’ Assembly before being declared ‘final plans’.
4. To ensure the planning/forecast of Auroville demographics and economy and, in consultation with other working groups, the planning for jobs, schools, restaurants, leisure, guesthouses, sports facilities etc.
5. To organise fundraising for the development of the town.
6. To finalize budgets for submission to the Auroville Foundation for inclusion in the GOI Grant and for separate fundraising and ensure that utilisation certificates are submitted tin time.
7. To lay down regulations (bylaws) for the approval of site and building applications for all developments, infrastructure developments included, for approval by the Residents’ Assembly.
8. Based on the approved regulations (bylaws), to give site and building permissions to the project holders.
9. To supervise tendering of works to be done under the supervision of the TDS.
10. To ensure that projects are being executed as approved.
11. To take all necessary steps to prevent, stop and rollback developments for which no approval has been given.
12. To report monthly to the community in the News and Notes and, where required in general meetings.

Starting the new groups – a one day coming together

1. The lack of overall agreement in the community about what we actually want with our city is disabling our development. It is proposed that the Working Committee, together with the Town Planning Action Group setup after the Retreat in March, and guided by Mr. B.V. Doshi, organise a one-day coming together (which can be continued if necessary) to reach agreement on what can be done within the next three to five years so that the development of Auroville can go on as agreed upon without continued blocking and haggling about the same.

2. During this reflection day the community should also define:

• the Terms of Reference (TOR) outlining the principles of planning and development;
• a realistic population growth pattern for the next 3-5 years or longer;
  
• the work areas and deliverables of each area in terms of content and time. This should also include the detailed development plans and master plans for infrastructure segments (mobility, water supply, communication, waste water) by what date(s).
  
• the individual functions and qualifications needed for the members of both TDC and TDS to be able to do the work agreed upon;
  
• who could be the members for the TDS and TDC to do the work agreed upon.
  

3. The outcome of the reflection day will be submitted to the community for its approval. The final selection of the TDS and TDC members could happen according to the participatory process in use for the Auroville Council and Working Committee.

Constitution, accountability, decision making and term of office

In this proposal, the Auroville members of the TDC will be accountable to the Residents’ Assembly.

The Residents’ Assembly, at any time, will have the right to remove any of the Auroville members of the TDS and TDC and replace them with other persons as members if a member is out of station for longer than three months or when it considers that this is in the larger interest of the community of Auroville.

The TDC shall attempt to take decisions by consensus. In case this is not possible, decisions shall be taken by a simple majority vote. In case of equality of votes, the Chairman shall have a casting vote.

The Auroville members of the TDS and TDC shall hold office for a period of four years. After the first two years of functioning, two members of the TDS and four members of the TDC shall retire and new members shall be appointed in their place. After four years, the other members of the TDS and TDC shall retire. Outgoing members are eligible for re-appointment.

Any vacancy of Auroville members arising either by way of resignation, expiry of term of office, or otherwise, shall be filled up by the Residents’ Assembly.

The Standing Order and Office Order issued by the Governing Board regarding the present TDC will be terminated. Also the TDC Advisory Group will be dissolved.

Additional observations from the Working Committee

1. There are only a limited number of people in Auroville who have the required qualifications and who are willing to be part of the TDS or TDC. Most of these people have been serving in town planning working groups in the past, and some have left as their views were incompatible with the views of others. For this reason we believe the one-day reflection day is necessary to determine what can be done in the next 3-5 years and who would be willing to do the work.
2. We received the observation of one member of the community that “the role of the residents as an assembly had been fulfilled when the Master Plan was prepared by it for the Governing Board and that there is no requirement of the Residents’ Assembly approving plans other than proposal to the Governing Board for amendments to the Master Plan. Involving the Residents’ Assembly in development plan approval makes the whole process dysfunctional and unpractical. The [Working Committee] proposal of the TDS and TDC being made accountable to the Residents’ Assembly will make the whole set-up dysfunctional.” The Working Committee disagrees with this viewpoint.
3. We have been discussing how to ‘unblock’ situations where one or more members of the community disagree(s) with and block a decision of the TDC. We propose that appeals are sent to Mr. B. V. Doshi who is the final deciding authority - (please note that we do not know if Mr. Doshi would be willing to take up this task).

~ The Working Committee