adminNoah Pito Herald Correspondent
Karoi Town Council has, with immediate effect, suspended the sale of residential stands after it emerged that most stands allocated in the past remain undeveloped.
In an interview recently, town secretary Mr Maxwell Kaitano said with more than 60 percent of stands allocated to home seekers years back still undeveloped, his council had resolved to stop fresh allocations. Instead, he said, council was embarking on a housing programme under which low-income residents, most of them informal traders, would get low-cost core-houses.
“We have only stopped selling residential stands, not business stands. We discovered that there is no development happening on most of the stands we allocated years back. The reason is that most of our residents are in the low-income bracket and thus do not have the capacity to build,” said Mr Kaitano.
“Yes, our vendors can be able to buy stands but will not manage to build houses. We have discovered that giving them stands is not the solution to the housing problem, but building them houses. We build them the houses then they pay affordable monthly sums until they become the owners.
“This way we will empower them unlike when they pay as lodgers to landlords,” he said. Mr Kaitano said council was engaging financiers and banks for more resources.
“We are at the moment engaging financiers and banks to partner with us and roll out this housing project. The project is set to commence next year.
“This is the only way our low-income earners can become home owners.
“The project will see more than 2 800 stands at our Peter-Groot Farm turned into core-houses to ease the accommodation shortage in the town.
“It is not only vendors who will benefit from the project, but civil servants and council employees. We are soon to flight a tender for a developer.”
Many people, including former MDC-T councillors, council officials and their cronies, grabbed hundreds of stands in the town but have failed to develop them.
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