40 percent of Bulawayo layouts to be reserved for flats development

Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor

THE Bulawayo City Council has said all layout plans within the city should have 40 percent of the land reserved for flats development and townhouses in a bid to achieve densification.

This comes amid revelations that the city is working on producing 3 000 stands annually for the next five years in line with its Master Plan.

Responding to questions from Sunday News, the local authority’s corporate communications manager, Mrs Nesisa Mpofu said the city’s development of housing stands was guided by the Master Plan.

“The development of housing stands is guided by master plan provisions in terms of zoning and detailed layout plans for the stand sizes and the general layout. 

In terms of the City of Bulawayo’s annual plan, as guided by the Master Plan, the city intends to produce 3 000 stands annually for the next five years.

“The city provides for town house sites or flat development and currently all layout plans that are produced should have 40 percent of the land area being town house or flat development sites in line with the settlement policy which seeks to achieve densification.

However, there are also some town houses developments on private properties where the owners apply for special consent to establish town houses provided their properties meet minimum requirements in terms of stand size and services,” said the council spokesperson.

Mrs Mpofu said in addition to town houses and flats, in high-density areas, the local authority was also encouraging the establishment of terraced houses.

Terraced housing is a row of uniform homes built in a continuous line and a terraced house is one property within that row.

They are narrow attached urban housing built uniformly together in continuous rows.

“Town houses are one form of cluster housing and in high-density areas, the common type of cluster housing is flats and terraced housing. The cost of the type of cluster housing is a determining factor in deciding whether flats, terraced housing, or town houses are to be developed in a particular area,” said Mrs Mpofu.

In terms of their main strategy in housing stands development, the council spokesperson revealed that they were engaging private developers with development finance and the necessary equipment to service the stands and the developers will recoup the money which they invested from proceeds of the sale of stands.

The housing backlog in the city, which stands at just over 150 000 has been a cause for concern over the past few years and this has further been exacerbated by several private developers that have abandoned their projects leaving the local authority with the task of completing the projects.

This has left beneficiaries and the local authority at loggerheads after the latter demanded that the former pays for the completion of the projects using hard cash. 

The new concept where they work with developers with their funds, instead of the traditional pre-sale concept, has, however, yielded positive results with the local authority commissioning several stands last year.

Regarding areas that fall outside the city’s boundaries which are being developed into housing stands, Mrs Mpofu said they were the responsibility of the local authorities under which they fall in and their incorporation into Bulawayo should be voluntary.