adminTaurai Mangudhla Senior Property Reporter
THE HARARE City Council is luring investors to develop golf course estates as part of its strategy to ensure housing for all economic groups.
The council is also looking at implementing an urban renewal programme. With targets to achieve World Class City Status by 2025, Harare is embarking on various initiatives that will change the city landscape, Deputy Mayor Enock Mupamawonde said.
“Golf Course Estate properties provide a good lifestyle and a community atmosphere,” Mr Mupamawonde told a Construction Industry Federation of Zimbabwe (Cifoz) annual general meeting and Congress last week.
Lifestyle features of the estate can include swimming pools, gyms, recreation facilities and even restaurants, in addition to the golf course itself. “These types of facilities boost the attractiveness of the properties and therefore, boost their value,” Mr Mupamawonde said, adding “the property values tend to outpace the general market, they generally attract a premium to the surrounding area.”
Currently, investors have rushed to pursue low cost housing stand schemes that are proving to be a challenge as defaults on instalments grow while the uptake on CABS’s low cost housing units in Budiriro remains low at about 36 percent despite attempts to lure clients by relaxing payment terms.
Mr Mupamawonde said council is aggressively pushing to secure seven farms promised to the local authority by central government over the years for residential uses as part of efforts to reduce the national housing deficit.
Zimbabwe’s national housing deficit currently stands at 1, 25 million. There have been delays in delivery of the promise due to lengthy technical processes in central government, Mr Mupamawonde said.
“We want to ensure people have decent and affordable housing and we have been promised seven farms for residential use because we currently don’t have land,” Mr Mupamawonde said.
“The procedure is the Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement hands over land to the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and Local Housing which then gives the land to respective local authorities,” Mr Mupamawonde added.
This comes as the City of Harare pushes to achieve its target of 105 000 new housing units by 2018 in line with ZimAsset.
By January, council announced plans to service and deliver 20 000 stands to people on the housing waiting list.
Online Reporter