Suburban
In September last year, former Harare Mayor Councillor Jacob Mafume said densification was the in thing. In 2020, Government approved the Zimbabwe National Human Settlements Policy (ZNHSP) to guide human settlements development in the country and densification, which will see the development of flats, cluster houses and sub-division of low density stands, is one of the highlights of the policy.
Harare residents have been complaining that the densification was not taking into consideration the fact that water, sewer, roads and electricity infrastructure as well as social services such as schools and health facilities have not been expanding at the same rate.
Cllr Mafume said people are no longer interested in colonial house sizes, colonial yards and having swimming pools at all the houses in one street.
“People have compact families and now want to live in compact neighbourhoods with a lot of neighbours and smart and secure places.
“They no longer want space.
“They are looking at their computers, TV screens and so forth,” said Cllr Mafume.
He said people used to be fascinated by building industrial-sized homes with toilets everywhere.
“That’s no longer in style.
“People are no longer interested in big yards so densification is a reality.
“Even in my ward, Ward 17, there are thousands and thousands of people who are converting their places into cluster houses and cluster houses are coming,” said Cllr Mafume. He said there is need to develop the sewer infrastructure as some of the areas were using septic tanks and there is need to start laying new pipes.
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“So we are going to work out how we can make the cost paid to these people and we now need to provide a whole lot more water and we now need to collect rubbish more regularly because clearly there are now more people staying in one yard than what was happening,” said Cllr Mafume.
He said planning is organic. “There might have been a plan for 1982 but when people want to do development, they send circulars.
“So what they do is you can have plans within a plan.
“And now these plans and new phenomenon of cluster homes means that every time they consult you, that’s a new plan and a variation to the plan,” said Cllr Mafume.
He urged residents to play particular attention to the zoning of the city and adverts flighted in the media so that they can keep abreast of the planning regime to ensure the processes are conducted procedurally.
This story was first published by Suburban in September last year
