Suburban
Bulawayo — IN a bid to economise on land, the Bulawayo City Council has resolved to devote 40 percent of all its new housing space to high-rise units, to cut down on service costs, and be able to accommodate more residents.
Council principal town planner, Thabisiwe Ncube said the policy change will help reduce Bulawayo’s housing backlog, which currently stands at 100 000.
“In line with National Development Strategy 1(NDS1), which seeks to provide citizens with access to affordable and quality settlement, on every land layout we produce, 40 percent will go towards high rising structures,” she said.
As urbanisation increases in the country, cities and towns are facing growing housing shortages, forcing government to make its provision one of its top priorities.
It hopes to provide up to 220 000 new housing stock by 2025 through a combination of direct investment by government itself, and that by the private sector.
Ncube said the Bulawayo city council welcomed private housing developers, particularly those who wished to invest in high rise residential accommodation.
“Those who are interested, we welcome you in that aspect because most of developers are interested in building spacious sprawling housing units which demand huge space,” she said.
She said council was engaging a number of potential housing investors in the city, Zimbabwe’s second largest.
“Under the land service agreement, we are saying as council we don’t have funding to service, we have challenges with offsite infrastructure as well lack of equipment to develop land.
“What we did is we have engaged private developers to say anyone with capacity can come through and partner us,” Ncube said.
She implored investors to also consider putting in related infrastructure, instead of just servicing the land where housing projects were being carried out.
As an example of such partnerships with the private sector, the Bulawayo City Council recently clinched a joint venture deal with National Building Society to spruce the main bus station in the city, Renkini — New Ziana.
