not a disqualifying factor in area selection, as almost

all damaged neighbourhoods were informal and over

80% of the population lived in such areas. For some
organisations, supporting informal settlements towards
recognition and development was as important as
post-disaster reconstruction. However, most donors and
organisations did not recognise that newly emerging
informal post-disaster settlements had the same
potential and challenges as pre-earthquake informal
settlements and did not support new settlements during
their rapid growth after the earthquake.
In many plans, neighbourhood sub-areas were
classified according to levels of informality. The map
and photographs in Figure 13 show levels of informality,
with purple, green and blue representing different levels
of development. But there was no consensus on how
to classify or name the different levels of informality.
Informal neighbourhoods included established
settlements like Savane Pistache and emerging
settlements on the foothills of Morne l’Hôpital (both in
Figure 13).
quOTEs
“But I don’t know what to do with up there [Morne
l’Hôpital foothills] MTPTC says it’s a red zone
and no-one should be there; everything should
be demolished. But that’s not going to happen.
If I started to do something up there, would I just
make it easier? Would more people arrive, and the
problem get worse? I don’t have the money to go in
and build retaining structures everywhere, and if I
did, I’d have to relocate everyone.”
“Petionville was easy. I’m glad some of the
neighbourhoods were done but we didn’t need
to do all of them… We could have predicted that
Petionville would boom.”
Figure 12. Demarcation of neighbourhoods included topographic features such as ravines (left) and property
boundaries (right)
Credits: Sylvain Joachim/FAU (left) and Maggie Stephenson (right)
Learning from community pLanning foLLowing the 2010 haiti earthquake
38 www.iied.org
4.2.2 Project scope
Project scope refers to the facets of urban development
addressed in community planning and neighbourhood
recovery: the physical site and situation, risk,
infrastructure, housing, services, governance, social
cohesion and economic development. Although we can
describe all 28 projects as multi-sectoral or integrated,
they varied in their coverage of or emphasis on
different topics.
Organisations involved in early community planning
initiatives were uncertain about the prospects of funding
for implementation. Later initiatives had greater clarity on
resources and therefore potential implementation.
Many of the neighbourhood programmes were funded
under housing recovery budgets, but most of the
works in the plans and under implementation were not
housing. Planning as a community consultative process
focused less on the rehabilitation of private assets and
more on collective issues and measures. Most project
funding had fixed criteria, such as assisting the most
vulnerable or reducing risk. Delivering visible results
was a priority for government, donors, organisations and
communities themselves.
Planning project documentation — both for
implementation and reporting — emphasises physical
works, reflecting the process of preparing maps,
drawings and specifications, the visible outputs and the
proportion of the budget involved. However, analysis
of project team composition, time and daily activities
indicates the significance of — and investment in —
social and economic development to strengthen, among
other things:
• Representation and participation
• Relationships between communities and authorities
• Mitigating local tensions and conflict
• Empowerment of women and girls
• Youth leadership and skills development
• Support for the earthquake injured and disabled
• Psychosocial support and promoting public health
• Promoting entrepreneurship and small business
• Cultural expression, and
• Communication and feedback mechanisms.
quOTEs
“The masterplan is really, really ambitious. But I
guess that’s part of what a masterplan is — it’s
the future, the future plan. We’re doing access up
the ravine but it calls for a two-lane road, it’s just
astronomically expensive. So the way I look at it is,
maybe we’ve set the scene for the government to do
it in the future.”
“The projects were prioritised but it comes down
to a judgement call with our budget, and in some
cases we do scaled-down versions.”