The Hindu Business Line : Place for heritage and culture

The building should be a manmade architectural work or of historical importance or housing monumental structures and paintings, structural elements that are archaeological in nature, inscriptions, cave dwellings or a combination of features which are of outstanding universal value in terms of history, art, aesthetics or ecological dimension, or a combined work of nature and man.

The natural wonders and manmade architectural treasure are priceless and ought to be conserved and handed over intact to future generations.

To safeguard such buildings an expert committee was constituted by UNESCO to identify, protect, conserve and preserve such tangible properties. For this purpose, the World Heritage Committee and World Heritage Fund were formed in 1976.

There are more than 750 World Heritage monuments, which are the pride of the respective countries and a symbol of their cultural and natural wealth. In India, the Ajantha Caves, Brihadeeswara Temple in Thanjavur, Fatehpur Sikri in UP, churches of Goa, Pattadakal temples, Hampi in Karnataka and the Taj Mahal in Agra are some well-known examples.

In 1959 the Ancient Monuments and Ancient Site and Remains Act (A.M. and A.S.R) was enacted to protect all monuments/sites of national importance and as on date more than 4,000 monuments are covered by it.

Developments are prohibited within a radius of 100 metres from the monuments and permission is needed for any development within a radius of the next 200 metres. However, structures in existence before the Act came into force are exempted but no additions and alterations can be made in them.

Archaeological sites and townscapes are the economic assets of a country as they hold immense potential for tourism development. With proper care, maintenance of historic buildings becomes economical and they may be put to good use. Old palaces, for instance, are being restored and used as hotels.

The Delhi Assembly passed the New Delhi Ancient and Archaeological Site and Remains Act 2004, providing for protection of any structure, erection or monument or any cave rock sculpture or scripture of historical, archaeological or artistic interest and which has been in existence not less than 100 years. No construction or mining will be allowed within 50 metres of the monument while a further 100 metres is designated as regulated area, where any development would require prior permission from the authorities.

The Act will help protect buildings that are not currently protected by the Archaeological Survey of India.

The Karnataka Government has decided to preserve Mysore as a heritage city. The Mysore Agenda Task Force has been commissioned to document the heritage buildings of Mysore.

Valuation of Heritage Buildings

The usual methods — Land and Building Method or income capitalisation method or comparison of sale instances — cannot be applied except in cases when the owner needs to be compensated if it is a private building.

For example, the funds required to preserve the Madurai Meenakshi Temple or the Mysore Palace will exceed the original cost of construction. A different approach is needed to justify the preservation and maintenance expenditure.

The inflow of a large number of visitors will directly benefit the growth of many trades, and the economy in general. Such trades include tourist hotels and general business. This kind of development has a multiplier effect. The valuation to be adopted is the benefit approach method.

Who is benefited?

Heritage buildings benefit the businesses and residences in the neighbourhood. Many professional groups, including construction firms and skilled and unskilled workers are benefited. The benefits can be estimated by determining the enhanced capital or rental values of the properties in the neighbourhood.

Heritage buildings recognised as World Heritage sites attract tourists from all over the world and help earn valuable foreign exchange. In fact, a country like Cambodia survives mainly on the income generated by foreign tourists.

Methods of Valuation

These include Stated Preference method, Travel Cost method and Hedonic Property Value.

In the Stated Preference method, enquiry is made among the local people and the tourists on the amount they are willing to pay to get the building recognised as a heritage structure. This enquiry may be made without any guidance to a possible figure or inviting people to choose between nominated options, including a monetary element, or seeking the people's approval for a certain expenditure or policy like a one-time payment or instalments paid with the property tax. This process was reportedly followed in the valuation of the Royal Theatre at Copenhagen by contacting about 1,800 people.

The Travel Cost method is based on the number of persons visiting the site and the cost of transport. This method was used to estimate the demand for museums in Quebec in 1994.

As for the Hedonic Property Value, in this method the prices of houses with different characteristics are compared to show how the prices change with variation in characteristics. By this method it was found that house prices in Boston were significantly affected by architectural styles.

(The author is former National President, Institution of Valuers, Chennai.)

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