Chronicle Editor
Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor
THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has started its expansion drive that will see it spreading out within a 40-kilometre radius of the Central Business District as prescribed in a Presidential Proclamation of 2004.
The expansion will see the city now stretching as far as Ntabazinduna, parts of Esigodini, parts of Nyamandlovu, parts of Solusi area and also past Insukamini in Matobo.
Areas likely to be affected by the expansion fall under Umguza Rural District Council, Matobo RDC and Tsholotsho RDC.
Under the Presidential Proclamation 15E of 2004 and the subsequent Statutory Instruments (SI) that created the metropolitan provinces of Bulawayo and Harare, metropolitan boundaries were declared as covering a radius of up to 40 kilometres and in Bulawayo most of those areas are under the jurisdiction of Umguza RDC.
The City of Bulawayo has set the gazetting of the new boundaries as one of the priority projects in the implementation of the city’s development phase.
This has been scheduled to take place by 2026.
Giving more details on the new boundaries, the city’s corporate communications manager, Mrs Nesisa Mpofu revealed that for the gazetting to happen, those areas that are within the masterplan of the city but currently outside the city’s administrative boundary would need to be incorporated first.
“The route that is being pursued is that of voluntary incorporation. This involves a property owner applying to the City of Bulawayo to get council approval of the incorporation of their property and also obtaining a resolution from the Rural District Council that they currently fall under acceding to their request.
“Thereafter the property owners would then seek ministerial approval. A number of property owners with such properties have applied to the City of Bulawayo for voluntary incorporation and council has acceded to their request. With voluntary incorporation, the applicant who is the property owner is the one who approaches both local authorities,” said the council spokesperson.
According to the country’s laws, RDCs are not mandated to create urban settlements.
The Urban Councils Act Chapter 29:15 allowed the cities to expand to RDC areas and the masterplan has a radius of 40 km. All RDCs within the 40km radius could not develop without the City’s consent.
BCC already has a resolution to incorporate part of Umguza RDC. Once this is done council would ensure order and plan accordingly for the residents as they were putting pressure on council services like clinics, schools and other social amenities.
Several suburbs inclusive of Mbundane and Emthunzini have been operating without key social amenities with BCC previously refusing to connect them to their water and sewer reticulation system, arguing that the suburbs did not fall under its jurisdiction despite it being located just at the boundary between the city and Umguza.
There was hope in 2017, when the two local authorities signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) where BCC agreed that they would service Mbundane and Emthunzini suburbs with water and sewer reticulation.
Umguza RDC at one point accused BCC of trying to “steal” its land without any compensation.
However, in July, seven developers of seven suburbs located on the boundary of the two local authorities, applied to BCC seeking voluntary incorporation, which they were granted.
Some of the reasons put forward by BCC for the incorporation were that it was prudent as the revenue collection base was increased, and further the population also increased, resulting in more national resources being allocated.
The seven suburbs were; Inhliziyo (Maharba Land Developers), Emthunzini (Hawkflight Construction), Hopelyn (Lynden Pvt Ltd), King City (Radar Properties), Lovendale (MSN Land Developers), Rangemore (Capson Crispin Ndlovu) and another area that is owned by the Public Service Pension Fund.
Online Reporter