Planning in Auroville

A Short Overview

The Auroville township has been built over the past 50+ years by its residents with the existing resources, including their personal savings, the income they generate, national and international donations, and occasionally grants provided by the Government of India.

The residents of Auroville are committed to building Auroville. In doing so, one of their main inspirations is the Galaxy concept which was created in 1968 by Roger Anger, Auroville’s chief architect. The Galaxy is, by definition, an evolving concept – and Auroville is a place for grassroots experimentations. Building the city needs to come from the residents themselves, based on collective processes that reflect the values of Auroville. The need for flexibility in planning, for participatory processes and for respecting the environment, is upheld in the Master Plan (Perspective 2025) document which was approved in 2001 and gazetted in 2010.

The Auroville community wishes to develop Auroville according to the spirit and letter of the Auroville Charter, and to manifest the city based on the following key features, encompassed in the Master Plan (Perspective 2025) document:

Flexibility in planning

The Master Plan (Perspective 2025) document is conceived as a broad policy framework meant to guide the formulation of Detailed Development Plans. It emphasizes that planning in Auroville needs to be flexible. Auroville is an experimental city based on an evolutionary concept, and its realization necessarily involves trials and errors.

Participatory processes

The residents of Auroville should play a central role in building their environment, according to: (1) the guidelines set forth by the Mother and her chief architect Roger Anger, (2) the Auroville Foundation Act, and (3) the Master Plan (Perspective 2025). Auroville can only be built by its residents, in consultation with its neighbourhood and relevant authorities.

Respecting the environment

A strong emphasis of the Master Plan (Perspective 2025) document is made on the preservation of biodiversity and natural resources, by including proper environmental impact assessments in town-planning. In today’s world, natural resources are invaluable and Auroville has set an example for the world, which needs to be preserved.

Flexibility in planning

Participatory processes

Respecting the environment

"Although the Master Plan perspective 2025 provides a time horizon of 25 years, it will neither be traditional nor static and rigid. [...] The present momentum in Development and Environmental activities will be strengthened through a participatory Environmental Management process which will be integrated within all development, planning and urban design elements."

Master Plan (Perspective 2025) document, gazetted in 2010

Auroville's Planning Journey

The Galaxy

The town-planning of Auroville is based on the concept of Galaxy, which is a concept created by the French architect Roger Anger, who was appointed by the Mother to design the city of Auroville, based on her original 1965 sketch. Between 1966 and 1968, Roger Anger provided the Mother with several drawings and concepts for the city. The drawing called the “Galaxy” received the blessings of the Mother. It is however worth noting that in its very essence, the Galaxy concept is an evolving one, and is characterized by movement and flow.

The Galaxy concept is composed of a few core elements, which include:

a central Peace Area, which is home to the Matrimandir (the soul of the city) and its park of Unity;
four zones (International, Residential, Cultural and Industrial)
to connect the four zones, a service node called the Crown (which is in no instance presented as a circular road)
a Green Belt of farms and forests, surrounding the city area

"We are not talking of the Galaxy as a building, as a model. The Galaxy is notional. The vision of the Mother was notional. Auroville was notional. We are trying to say: what is that notion? Then how do we bring it back down into this place?"

B.V. Doshi, former Chairman of the Auroville Town Development Council (and more).

The Master Plan

The Master Plan was prepared and ratified by the Residents’ Assembly of Auroville on July 28, 1999. It was then sent to the Governing Board which formally approved it with some changes and presented it to India’s Ministry of Human Resource Development in February 2001. This version of the Master Plan was called ‘The Auroville Universal Township Master Plan: Perspective 2025’, and was gazetted by the Auroville Foundation several years later on August 16, 2010.

The gazetted Master Plan differed from the approved Master Plan of 1999 in one major aspect, that of road widths and sections.

The Master Plan (Perspective 2025) document clearly states in its Preamble that it “provides a policy framework which will serve as a guide in the preparation of five-year Development Plans and Annual Plans for implementation of proposals.”

Although it is called a “Master Plan”, this is not by itself a valid planning document since it does not incorporate any Detailed Development Planning, nor Environmental Impact Assessments – both being required. It is also not approved by the Town and Country Planning Organisation (TCPO) of Tamil Nadu, which is a legal requirement. In fact, this Master Plan (Perspective 2025) document is only a perspective document. It was never meant to be a tool for implementation. It only provides a policy framework for the preparation of proper plans.

With the approach of 2025, it is now necessary that the Residents’ Assembly review the existing Master Plan (Perspective 2025) document and more importantly formulate another Master Plan Perspective document, which would then guide the formulation of Development Plans and Implementation Plans for the following set of 25 years.

Protecting Land

The Master Plan (Perspective 2025) is a document that was created to obtain for Auroville the protection it needs for its development. More specifically, the first purpose of this document was to obtain special protection for the land. Unfortunately, Auroville never fully succeeded to get this special status and legal protection.

Today many land parcels of the 20 sq.km projected for the Auroville Township do not belong to Auroville. Some of these land parcels belong to local villagers, which need to be respected as the first inhabitants of the bioregion. Other land parcels have been subject to speculation, and rich investors have forced the value of surrounding land to grow rapidly and exponentially.

Part of the land in the planned City Center, and most of the land in the planned Green Belt, do not belong to Auroville. This makes it impossible to build the city with rigid and dogmatic views. Building Auroville will require some adjustments, flexibility, and the inclusion of bioregional representatives in the process.

Implementing large-scale development projects such as wide circular roads without prior preparation is not only against the provisions of the Master Plan (Perspective 2025) document, it also goes against common sense as the land which aren’t the property of Auroville would then skyrocket in price, leaving the community with no possibility to acquire them. Furthermore, not including the local villagers in the process would show much disrespect and may create unnecessary tensions, since bioregional inhabitants would be directly impacted by such developments.

More Resources

If you’d like to read more about planning in Auroville, you can explore the following links.

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