The presentation is focused to an ancient city capital in Sri Lanka which has a history of more than 1 500 years. It is called Anuradhapura.

The city is located in the North central Province i.e. North to Sri Lanka about 225 Km. away to the North of "Colombo". The city is well connected with regional towns of Vavuniya from North, Kurunegala from South, Trincomalee and Polonnaruwa from East and Mannar from West. Several kings had the privilege of enforcing their ruling powers to the whole country from Anuradhapura. It is the first human settlement town in Sri Lanka along the river of Malwatta Oya. The religious importancy of this town grew with the planting of the sacred Boo Tree with the introduction of Buddhism to Sri Lanka, Now one of the oldest trees in the world, Anuradhapura became a sacred city with the Administrative capital since then. The fall of Anuradhapura began with the shifting of capital city to Polonnaruwa. The ancient capital became ruined. The development of the new city began during 1930s and 1940s where Sir Clifford Holiday a British Town Planner gave the first Town Planning Scheme to the city development with a lay out plan to Anuradhapura. Originally this lay out plan was designed to accommodate about 10 thousand people but over the last few decades the city population has grown up to 60,000 with a floating population of 50 thousand people a day.

The present situation of the city, the sacred area i.e. the old kingdom is being planned and secured by the Archaeological Department and the Town & Country Planning Department. The new town has been declared by the Urban Development Authority (UDA) as an urban development area in 1980 to achieve a planned development in this important city. The main planning issues that is to be discussed in this presentation is how the old heritage could be brought back to the new city with its architecture, cityscape and landscape designs because the new city developments has completely lost the above mentioned characters. Absence of a proper development plan has generated many incompatible uses creating problems in parking, traffic congestion and infrastructure inadequacies.

UDA has made an attempt to identify such problems, and with remedial measures. This is because, the "Anuradhapura" should have one identity, with implementation of the development plan proposals. The target is to complete the above task within a period of 10 years guided by the
development plan prepared by the UDA.

The preliminary approval has been granted by the Planning Committee (UDA) and it is being presented to the Anuradhapura Urban Council for their comments by August, 2000.

PREPARATION OF A DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR THE ANURADHAPURA, THE ANCENT CAPITAL OF SRI LANKA

Introduction:

Sri lanka is an Island Country situated in the Indian Ocean, close to India and has a history of more than 2000 years. The first settlement has been commenced near Malwathuoya River, by the name of the then Minister " Anuradha" and later it was named as Anuradhapura. This was the first capital city of Sri Lanka , which dates backs to 5th to 6th century. With the introduction of Buddhism, the city was developed which parks, ponds, lakes and with religious buildings and later it became the administrative centre in the ancient Sri Lanka. Planting of the tree of Sri Maha Bodhi, added and additional religious value to the city. It is a significant feature, that the ancient capital cities of Sri Lanka, was developed connected with a religious value. The last kingdom of Sri Lanka was developed with the background of Temple of Tooth Relic. Thereafter, Anuradhapura which has a history of more than 1500, years was not only popular among locals but internationally also. This is a popular city with reference to its culture, religious architecture etc.

History:

Since the history of Anuradhapura as an ancient capital was under the ruling power of many kings, the downfall was started with the development of Polonnaruwa, a city which is situated to the East of the Anuradhapura town. Thereafter, the ancient kingdom became ruins and a new city started to emerging with commercial activities. As a result, the fist town plan for the Anuradhapura has been prepared by a British Town Planner, Sir Clifford Holiday in 1951 together with a Town and Country Planning Department of Sri Lanka. The town has been designed to accommodate 9000 population with infrastructure facilities according to the British standard. After 1951, the town has been under the administration of a Special Commissioner and in 1961 with the adoption of implementation of projects Anuiradhapura Conservation Board was established. In 1975 the above Board has been desolved and again it was under a Special Commissioner. In 1983, the Anuradhapura Urban Council was established and 1979 June 1st , it was declared under the UDA law, in order to prepare and implement urban development plan under the guidance of the Urban Development Authority.

Objectives:

The prime objective of the development plan, is to create a city with a religious value and internationally accepted to conserve the traditional, archaeological and cultural value. It is also and objective to develop the city over come economic, social problems, and to improve with infrastructure facilities.

Planning Approach:

The city of Anuradhapura has a 49.19 SQ.K.M and the city has 2 sections i.e. old city it consist of ancient kingdom and the sacred area, and the new city where the commercial and residential development is concentrated. The attached chart indicates the methodology, that has been adopted to prepare the development plan, for Anuradhapura ancient city. The present city is developing haphazardly, with incompatible uses giving less consideration for its historic values architectural features when developments are permitted by the authorities.

Anuradhapura is presently playing the role of a provincial capital and administrative capital and service centre to its province and to its hinterland. Considering the complex in nature of the problems that exist in the infrastructure land use and with other related sectors, the goals and objectives has been formulated aiming to complete a plan by the Year 2015.

Strategies:

In order to achieve the above goals and objectives, the strategies indicated in the development plan methodology will be adopted. It is suggested to implement the land use policy proposals for economic development together with infrastructure facilities to be given first priority. It is also suggested to implement a set of building regulations to the city. The city has been divided into 5 planning units taking into consideration the different characteristic of each unit and planning guide lines has been given indicating what is to be encouraged and what is to be discouraged in terms of development standards to the city.

With reference to the sacred area and the old city Archaeological Department and the Department of Town & Country Planning of Sri Lanka have a separate programme of conserving and to improve the quality of the area by removing unauthorised and incompatible uses whenever necessary with the consultation of the UDA.