Bulawayo City Council buys farms to set up new suburbs

THE Bulawayo City Council is in the process of buying farms on the outskirts of the city to expand the boundaries and meet the accommodation needs of the growing population.

The move, Sunday News understands, is meant to avail housing opportunities for more than 125 000 residents on the city's housing waiting list. According to the Presidential Proclamation 15E of 2004 and a subsequent Statutory Instruments creating the metropolitan provinces of Bulawayo and Harare, the boundaries for the two cities were declared as covering a radius of up to 40 kilometres. Since then the Bulawayo City Council and Umguza Rural District Council have been at each other's throats regarding the incorporation of land around the city.

Some of the areas annexed under the Presidential Proclamation include Reigate, Umvutsha, Umguza Agricultural Lots, Umguza Estate and the Southern portion of Nondwane. Due to the back and forth clash between the two authorities, this has seen a number of suburbs – Emthunzini and Mbundanethat are located on the border of the two councils, going for a number of years without sewer or water reticulation services.

BCC Finance Director Mr Kimpton Ndimande said council was in the process of buying farms that were surrounding the city, which fell under the jurisdiction of Umguza RDC so as to push for the expansion.

"With the ever-growing population in the city we note the importance for the city to identify more tracts of land where we will build more accommodation and other key amenities noting that in the coming few years the city is becoming smaller to accommodate its present population. We are therefore in the process of identifying a number of farms surrounding the city with the hope of purchasing them and incorporating them to the city's jurisdiction, that is obviously with consent from Umguza RDC," said Mr Ndimande.

He, however, noted that the major shortcoming was that Umguza RDC in some instances wanted to "act like an urban authority" which was complicating the expansion drive.

"We have a situation where now we have Umguza trying to establish urban settlements right at the periphery of Bulawayo's jurisdiction, like in the case of Mbundane and Emthunzini suburbs, this thus affects our expansion drive because they (Umguza) are not an urban authority and are aware of our move to expand our city," he said.

In a letter that was written to the Government in 2016, BCC had given notice of their intention to expand the city as per the proclamation of 1999.

"Reference is made to the Statutory Instrument 212 of 1999. Please be advised that an error has been perpetrated over time to assume that the land as detailed in Statutory Instrument 212 of 1999 is under Umguza Rural District Council (fact and Law). It is quite clear that this land since 1999 falls under the city of Bulawayo.

"The land was acquired/incorporated by the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe for the City of Bulawayo through Statutory Instrument 212 of 99. Therefore, it means every development in these areas must be done under the authority of the City of Bulawayo as the relevant planning authority in terms of the law. We are therefore accordingly proceeding to implement the attached Statutory Instrument," reads part of the letter.

In the restructuring of ward and block boundaries in 1999 in terms of the Proclamation 17, the Statutory Instrument stated that: ". . . by virtue of the powers vested in the President I do hereby alter the boundaries of the Bulawayo City Council area by the addition of Umvutsha, Reigate, Umguza Agricultural Lots, Umguza Estate, Southern Portion of Nondwane to the said Council area . . ."

This was done in terms of paragraph (b) of subsection 2 of section 4 of the Urban Councils Act (Chapter 29:15). Section 4 of the Act, which deals with provisions relating to establishment, alteration or abolition of municipalities, towns, councils and council areas reads:

"At any time after the establishment of a council the President may, subject to this Act, by proclamation in the Gazette and after consultation with the council divide or re-divide the council area into any number of wards, create one or more additional wards, alter or abolish one or more wards or abolish the division of the council area into wards, (Or) alter the boundaries of the council area by adding thereto and additionally, or alternatively, subtracting there from any area, determine any question arising there from and redefine the council area."