New city masterplan ready by year-end

Yeukai Karengezeka Herald Correspondent
Harare City Council has completed a pilot study leading to a new Harare Masterplan which is expected to be ready before the end of year, an official has said.

In an interview, the city’s acting chief planner, Mrs Wadzanayi Vutuza, said they rolled out questionnaires covering administrative, social and economic  services.

“We recently conducted a pilot study using Highfield and Hillside area which we completed and collected the data on the server,” she said.

“From what we gathered from the study, people were not aware of the process. We discovered that many people were merely centred on service delivery issues like water and electricity, yet there are a lot of other things to consider when we talk of a masterplan.”

Mrs Vutuza said throughout the month, the city will be going out to communities, educating them on the importance of their input in the formulation of the new masterplan.

“After we complete giving awareness in the communities in July, the city will begin to do the actual socio-economic study for areas in Harare,” she said.

The local authority is also going to involve, the business community, ias well as different Government institutions that play a role in the crafting of the master-plan.

“Next month, we will be engaging different stakeholders, including some Government ministries, business people, Institution of Engineers as well as Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (CAAZ),” said Mrs Vutuza.

After the information gathering is completed, the city will come up with policies to govern the development and 12 thematic groups will be deliberating the whole process.

Some of the thematic groups include transport, health, land use, infrastructure, industries, commerce and employment.

The study report is expected to be complete by mid-August.

“If everything goes according to plan, by mid-August we should have the report of study ready and we would need about a month and a half to complete the draft masterplan and the final copy will be ready before the year ends,” said Mrs  Vutuza.