Urban sustainability assessment of DHA City, Karachi (DCK) – Pakistan: A methodological approach combining urban form indicators with stakeholders’ perspectives

Abstract

This paper proposes a Sustainability Assessment for the social, economic, and environmental evaluation of gated housing projects, corresponding to the indicators of accessibility, connectivity, compatibility, nodality and containment, identity, diversity, density, and adaptability. The main aim is to apply a methodology for EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) reporting of gated housing projects that combines urban form indicators with local stakeholders' perspectives. The EIA report of DCK (DHA City, Karachi) was chosen as a hypothetical basis for sustainability assessment. Firstly, DCK is a gated residential suburb aimed to function as a self-sustained gated community. Secondly, the project is under construction and will comprise community facilities based on the Ekistics concept for promoting sustainability. Thirdly, its EIA report addresses recent sustainability challenges, thus providing a speculative foundation for sustainable gated housing in Pakistan. For recording stakeholders’ perspectives, research instruments included semi-structured interviews with M/S Osmani and Company (local consultancy firm), the administrators of DC, and the urban and infrastructure planners of Karachi. The study results show that the proposed sustainability assessment methodology achieves its design objectives and maintains that the relationship of urban form indicators with local stakeholders can be adopted for the sustainable planning and design of gated housing projects in Karachi.