Session Description
Urban renewal promises revitalised cities, yet too often displaces the very communities it claims to serve. Social impact assessment (SIA) should safeguard residents, livelihoods, and place-based social fabric—but a persistent gap remains between policy intent and delivery on the ground. This session asks how SIA can translate policy into genuine action in urban renewal and regeneration.
Grounded in the IAIA27 theme—looking back for the future—the session revisits lessons from past renewal projects, where weak baselines, tokenistic engagement, and unmonitored commitments led to displacement, gentrification, and eroded trust. It draws on Malaysia's rapidly urbanising context, where PLANMalaysia is embedding SIA within statutory planning under the Town and Country Planning Act 1976 (Act 172), alongside international experience.
Participants will examine practical questions: How can SIA shape renewal at the plan-making stage, not merely react to approved schemes? How should social baselines capture intangible community assets before they are lost? How can relocation, livelihood restoration, and benefit-sharing be made enforceable and monitored? And how can local knowledge steer renewal so that regeneration strengthens existing communities?
Bringing together planners, regulators, practitioners, and community institutions, the session moves from critique to concrete tools—checklists, indicators, and governance mechanisms—that help SIA deliver measurable social outcomes, offering transferable lessons for jurisdictions turning renewal policy into practice that honours the past while building inclusive urban futures.
Session Summary
Urban renewal too often displaces the communities it should serve. This session asks how social impact assessment can translate policy into action—revisiting lessons from past projects and Malaysia's statutory experience to make engagement, livelihood restoration, and monitoring deliver real outcomes.
Additional Information
Proposed by PLANMalaysia (Federal Department of Town and Country Planning), the national planning authority leading the institutionalisation of SIA under the Town and Country Planning Act 1976. Co-chaired with the Land Custody and Development Authority (LCDA) Sarawak to bring native customary rights and community perspectives. The session welcomes urban renewal and regeneration case studies from diverse jurisdictions and contributions on social baselines, community engagement, livelihood restoration, and monitoring.
Session Chair
Alias Rameli
Federal Department of Town and Country Planning (PLANMalaysia)
Malaysia
Session Co-chair
Saiful Bahari Amra Ramly
Land Custody and Development Authority (LCDA) Sarawak)
Malaysia