industrial park

Part of the Municipal Airport industrial complex, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

An industrial park is an area zoned and planned for the purpose of industrial development. In Hong Kong, industrial parks are usually known as industrial estates. In the UK small industrial park containing multiple units all of the same style are known as trading estates. A more "lightweight" version is the business park or office park, which has offices and light industry, rather than heavy industry.

Benefits

Industrial parks are usually located outside the main residential area of a city and normally provided with good transportation access, including road and rail.^[1]. Industrial parks are usually located close to transport facilities, especially where more than one transport modes coincide: highways, railroads, airports, and ports.

This idea of setting land aside through this type of zoning is based on several concepts:

• To be able to concentrate dedicated infrastructure in a delimited area to reduce the per-business expense of that infrastructure. Such infrastructure includes roadways, railroad sidings, ports, high-power electric supplies (often including three-phase power), high-end communications cables, large-volume water supplies, and high-volume gas lines.
• To be able to attract new business by providing an integrated infrastructure in one location.
• Eligibility of Industrial Parks for benefits^[2][3]
• To set aside industrial uses from urban areas to try to reduce the environmental and social impact of the industrial uses.
• To provide for localized environmental controls that are specific to the needs of an industrial area.

Industrial Park Scheme in India

The Industrial Park Scheme was introduced by the Government of India in 1997 to give impetus to the infrastructure sector. The scheme was revised in 2002 and was valid up to March 2006. A Draft Industrial Park Scheme was prepared in 2006. And the new scheme was finally introduced this year.

The scheme extends 100 per cent tax holiday on profits derived by an undertaking from the activity of developing, developing and operating, or maintaining and operating an Industrial Park and is applicable to all Industrial Parks set up between April 1, 2006 and March 31, 2009.

The objective of providing a tax holiday is to promote and incentivise capital investment. The industrial units set up under the new scheme can undertake certain specified manufacturing activities.

To gain the tax benefits, a developer essentially needs to comply with certain conditions, such as minimum requirement of 30 units, all units of same group would be considered as a single unit, a single unit cannot occupy more than 25 per cent of total area, minimum area of 50,000 sq mt needs to be developed, etc.

Criticism

Different industrial park fulfil these criteria to differing degrees. Many small communities have established industrial parks with only access to a nearby highway, and with only the basic utilities and roadways, and with few or no special environmental safeguards.

During the 1970s to 1990s, there was a glut of industrial park development in the United States^[4], resulting today in vast areas of industrial parks that sit idle and unsuited to other uses. This trend has been criticised as being a sort of "cargo cult", from the wildly optimistic speculation that, if it was built, "they" would come. According to David Brooks, one consequence of office parks in the United States is that large numbers of people living in exurbs no longer have contact with urban life.

Industrial parks have also been criticised because of their frequent remoteness of urban areas, one of the characteristics that has been touted as a benefit. One reason for this specific criticism is that industrial parks often destroy productive and valuable agricultural land. Another is that the industrial parks become remote to their employee pool, necessitating longer commutes and limiting employment accessibility for poorer employees. Another reason is that many urban areas have extensive areas of brownfield land that many feel should be the first priority in redeveloping as industrial sites.

List of significant Industrial Parks

• China
  • Shanghai China Fengpu Industrial Park

• Hong Kong
  • Tai Po Industrial Estate
  • Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate
  • Yuen Long Industrial Estate

• Kazakhstan
  • Paragon Industrial Park
• India
  • Sricity Multi product SEZ, part of Sricity which is a developing satellite city in the epicentre of Andhra Pradesh & Tamil Nadu.

See also

• Business park
• Industrial district
• Science park

References

1. ^ Industrial park scheme 2008 http://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/archive/IndustrialParkScheme_04072008.pdf
2. ^ Industrial Park Benefits http://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/archive/CBDTPressRelease_04072008.pdf
3. ^ List of Approvals & Withdrawals under the Industrial Park Schemes, 1999 & 2002 http://dipp.nic.in/industrial_park/industrial_park_scheme_17082006.pdf
4. ^ Existing and Developing Eco-Industrial Park Sites in the U.S. http://www2.ucsc.edu/gei/eco-industrial_parks.html