Abstract

Land-use zoning and air rights are matters that have been rarely linked together, and the connection the two terms have to smart, sustainable urbanism remains unclear. While land-use zoning is today rooted in the work of urban departments around the world, the ‘use of air’ is mostly only discussed under development rights laws and regulations. This research study presents the idea of air-use planning. It develops the rationale for planning air- as well as land-use using advanced technologies and outlines the challenges and potentials of employing the new concept to planning practices worldwide. The study, conducted in three stages, employs a qualitative case-study methodology, supported with seventeen semi-structured interviews, to examine three projects in Bahrain Bay Area. The results are interpreted in relation to international zoning principles and land-use planning and development rights theories. The research highlighted that while real estate developers were not in favor of air-use planning, the concept was appealing to others. The findings indicated that the criticism of zoning principles come from the fear of the added restriction that could violate individual property rights. Little control is enforced to control the uses within a plot, and limited coordination efforts are made with neighboring developments, resulting in repetitive components that are underutilized. The study suggests that uses must be controlled vertically and horizontally using advanced technologies to ensure a holistic, smart, and sustainable approach to urbanism. This article fulfills the need to study how uses of buildings and neighborhoods could be optimized to attain smart, sustainable urbanism.