EDITORIAL COMMENT: Minister must stop rogue planning by councils

THERE has been a lot of highly dubious development in many areas, rural as well as urban, and it is fairly obvious that many councils are not fulfilling their legal functions to oversee planning changes.

So, the demand by Local Government and Public Works Minister Daniel Garwe that all local authorities jack up their land use management, including hiring the necessary staff and overhauling the whole public consultation process is welcome.

He has backed this with a 90-day moratorium on receiving, processing or approving all applications related to change of land use or reservation of land for specific uses.

This does not stop normal development and normal investment which can continue at speed during the moratorium. Development is different on zoned commercial and industrial land. Here the land use is already set on a plan and everyone knows this. A new industrial investor can move onto land zoned for industry and the only council permission needed is the approval of the building plans, a simple and rapid process.

A new shopping mall, or even a service station, can be built in a zoned shopping centre without anything more than the city planner having to approve the parking and access arrangements and the normal approval of building plans for compliance with the by-laws.

The problem is when someone wants to convert a farm into housing or convert housing into a factory or offices or shops.

The minister seems to imply that the moratorium will be continued in councils that cannot satisfy his conditions within the 90-days, and has said the ministry will lift the moratorium early on councils that can show they either have already met the conditions, or as soon as they meet all conditions earlier.

The minister’s move is not meant to prevent development or changes of land use. What it is meant to do is to ensure that the conditions in the Town and Country Planning Act are fulfilled, which require that changes in land use are properly done, and this might well require changes in local plans and even to master plans depending on what sort of development is desired, and how this could affect nearby properties.

The Act does not ban changes in land use. It recognises that needs change, that business centres, towns and cities grow, that we cannot set in concrete what was workable 20 or 50 years ago. But it does lay down procedures that must be followed.

The biggest requirement is that those affected by the change, the people living in the area and owning property in the area where the changes are wanted, are fully consulted and that their concerns are addressed.

In quite a few cases, there is also need for professional planners to be brought in if there is general approval of the changes, so that the positive side of the development is stressed and negatives are minimised.

There has been a lot of major development in recent years that suddenly just appears in a residential area.

People are not consulted, or at least not adequately, and no provision is made for road upgrades, sewage disposal, waste removal, noise abatement or other infrastructure needs as land set aside for houses is converted into offices, shops, churches and even industrial use.

One example that has built up particular ire and concern is the eruption of service stations in many residential areas of Harare, usually accompanied by a mini-shopping centre or row of takeaways.

Neighbours find out when the builders move in; permits from the council are waved, to show that a licence has been given, but no one was consulted or at least not in a way that they noticed.

Residents are not just worried about living near tens of thousands of litres of highly inflammable fuel, although the regulators do ensure that this is safe, but also have to put up with traffic accessing the service station and the fact that such a development often does not fit in with the outlook of a residential suburb.

We have also seen significant ribbon development along main roads, often from an approved shopping centre, but expanding in an uncontrolled fashion without any attempt to change the local plan, a process that would normally be required to expand a commercial area.

So suddenly there is need for road upgrades, traffic lights and many other changes which the developers are not obliged to pay for.

To go back in history to the days when Harare City Council ensured development was properly done, we can look at the creation of the huge Borrowdale shopping centre by the late Sam Levy.

He started with a modest stand of commercially-zoned land on the Highlands-Borrowdale boundary, but then just expanded at will across the boundary.

The council, with the threat of bulldozers, made him regularise the development and revise the whole local town plan for the area. He was made to fund the new extension of the sewer main; he was made to provide proper parking and access to this parking from a side road, not the main road; he was made to have a professional draw up a new local plan for the whole of south Borrowdale, and then go through the consultative process that included individual invitations to those in the area to gain approval.

The result was a far better development as well as far better relations with those living in the area.

It would have been simpler if he had started correctly from the beginning.

Not everyone wants a new development, but when there is a legitimate need for the development then at least the consultation can minimise harm and maximise benefit.

Neighbours might want a wider buffer zone, such as offices buffering them from a shopping centre, plus they probably want changes to the road network, at the developer’s expense.

Even conversion to a church usually means that on-site parking is needed, rather than having the congregation parked along the verges for hundreds of metres in each direction every worship day.

Sometimes we have changes from public open space to development, even residential development. Earlier planners recognising that densities were likely to increase and that development was likely to make future parks necessary, made provision for this.

To concrete over their foresight is usually wrong but keeps happening in Harare as even wetlands are invaded with council permission. In former times the consultation of even a minor change required a newspaper advertisement along with letters to the owners of properties in the immediate neighbourhood.

There was always the weakness that the advertisement could just give the stand number, rather than the address, but the letters had to be more specific and be willing to address concerns. These days, as the Minister has suggested, more is required, such online details but with billboards or some other way of getting those in the area to look at the web pages and react.

Consultation is not consultation unless there is a far more pro-active effort to consult, or at least make sure that those in the area are properly notified.

Minister Garwe has moved in the right direction, not to block development but to make sure that it is properly planned and zoned, properly approved and that the people who it affects are consulted and that professional planners are involved to look at the pros and cons and ensure the pros easily outnumber the cons.

A single greedy developer cannot just ruin the lives of so many, so the processes have to be done properly.

We hope the Minister, as he lifts the moratorium on each council, sends in officials to check that the council has in fact done what is first required, and done it effectively and in full rather than just written him a letter full of pious hopes that will never be realised and all the council wants to do is let the chaos continue.