By Correspondent
Masvingo Council is projecting a housing demand between 10 000 and 30 000 which it hopes the new Masterplan will deal with.
In a statement Council said there is need for a variety of housing types to meet the needs.
“The balance required includes housing types meeting the needs of students and other categories of city residents.
These include low, medium, and high-density housing.
“Unmet housing demand for the planning period is between 10K and 30K units with 80% of this demand being for high-density housing.
In order to expeditiously meet this demand Masvingo has promised to work with various partners.
“It will be on land within the de jure city boundary as well as outside.
“It will involve the city as well as other layers of government, the private sector, civil society, and individual home seekers.
“Delivery on these proposals will be underpinned by several Council policies.
New Suburbs, New CBD
Town Clerk Engineer Mukaratirwa has said Council itself intends to build more houses to ease the burden.
He said besides industrialization, council envisions building of 10 000 new houses to ease accommodation woes.
The old city has plans for more new houses to be built going upwards to preserve land.
A new central business district will also be created opposite Masvingo Craft Centre together with a new provincial hospital.
“We also plan to divide the new CBD into economic corridors and one of the corridors will cover the Masvingo Airport area,” he said.
In the past Masvingo has been able to effectively deal with housing shortages by collaborating with the private sector.
In 2018 it sub-contracted a number of private contractors to pursue a rapid housing development initiative that significantly reduced the city’s housing backlog from 7 000 to only 764.
However since then the numbers have spiralled.
Currently the Council waiting list has over 10 000 people.
