By Correspondent
Over 20 000 stands in 101 locations are set to avoid demolitions through a regularisation process being carried out by the Harare City Council.
Harare says it will regularise only those locations that meet town-planning standards.
This is in line with the government’s regularisation agenda as spelt out in the National Human Settlement Policy and National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1).
However, thousands of other stands failed to meet the required criteria and face imminent demolition.
Below we reproduce the criteria which Council used to decide.
A Regularisation Steering Committee and a Regularisation Task Force were established.
Its task is to operationalise the implementation of government directives and council resolutions.
The Task Force developed a Regularisation checklist to guide its operations after noting that there was no standard to use.
This was previously reported to Parliament and Cabinet.
The settlements considered for regularisation are unique.
A one-size-fits-all approach would not apply as regularisation processes to be undertaken for these settlements differ from settlement to settlement.
The dysfunctional settlements considered for regularisation are broadly classified as indicated below:
1) Pay Schemes/ Cooperatives have been properly allocated land by the Council or state, but have not complied with infrastructure development requirements and are not billed.
2) Built Up and Partially Built Up Private Development Sites with valid Development Permits, but have not yet been issued Certificates of Compliance- not being billed for property tax and other services.
The developers are reluctant to complete developments, hence the need to regularise them so that the Council will start to levy beneficiaries.
- Individuals offered stands on Vacant Council and State land (infills)-The majority of these properties are not on Council data base, have no accounts, and the council is not charging any service fee or property tax on these properties.
4) Land Invasion in High-Density Areas- Built-Up Settlements
Properly planned settlements with approved layout plans, but invaded by low-income persons not allocated by the Council under the instigation of land barons.
Areas That Do Not Qualify For Regularisation
The regularisation exercise exempted the following:
- All settlements on Environmentally Sensitive Areas, such as wetlands and heritage sites usurped by illegal developments.
- All settlements built on school sites and recreational centres
- All settlements with pending Court Cases not recommended until the court process is finalised.
- All new invasions after the regularisation cutoff date of 24 September 2023.
5) All invasions in Low-Density Areas.
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