5000 stands, more wards for Bulawayo

BULAWAYO is set to get a 5 000 suburb constructed on its outskirts, with the location expected to be incorporated into the city once the delimitation exercise is completed.

The Bulawayo City Council is pushing for an additional six wards to be incorporated into the city during the delimitation exercise, which will see a number of areas that currently fall under Umguza constituency being incorporated into the city.

According to The Presidential Proclamation 15E of 2004 and the subsequent Statutory Instruments (SI) that created the metropolitan provinces of Bulawayo and Harare, metropolitan boundaries were declared as covering a radius of up to 40 kilometres and in Bulawayo, most of those areas are under the jurisdiction of Umguza Rural District Council (RDC).

It has since emerged that a private developer is already working on the development of 5 000 serviced stands which will be under the city's jurisdiction once the delimitation exercise is complete. This came out in a BCC engineering services report, where the developer, Hencock Ranching has sent a proposal to partner the local authority in the upgrading and operation of the sewerage services to cater for the new developments.

The developer is working on the upmarket Hopeville, Hopelyn and Hope Estate housing projects, which according to the report will have a shopping mall, three shopping centres, a hotel, seven primary schools, three secondary schools and a lifestyle estate.

"The standing agreement between the City of Bulawayo and the developer with regards wastewater treatement is that Hencock Ranching are expected to construct decentralised wastewater treatment facilities to cater for the full extent of their proposed development. However, upon assessing the total volume of sewage to be generated by the full extent of the development, the contractor realised that the wastewater treatment facilities to be constructed will be too costly to consider as stand-alone units," reads the report.

The developer is aiming at partnering the local authority in the operations of Aisleby sewerage treatment works where only one of the three plants is operational and discharging into Umguza River.

"Aisleby two is presently under BCC rehabilitation and is receiving no inflows. The rehabilitation is approximately 75 percent complete, but all rehabilitation work has come to a standstill due to BCC budgetary constraints and the contractor, Natwecraft, has demobilised for site.

"Aisleby three treats wastewater using the return activated sludge process. It was rehabilitated from 2016 to 2018 and the plant worked satisfactorily until December 2021 when a collapse of the outfall sewer completely cut off the flow of influent to the plant," reads the report.

According to the developer's proposal, rather than constructing discrete sewage treatment works for the housing developments, the developers will also identify collaborative opportunities with BCC in the successful upgrading and operation of sewage services in existing sewer catchments to the north of the city.

"Hencock Ranching proposes to repair the collapsed section of the Aisleby three outfall. The developer will also investigate funding the completion of Aisleby two. The understanding is that the funding required to complete the rehabilitation works at Aisleby two is estimated to be US$431 000.

"The developer is to investigate funding the rehabilitation of irrigation infrastructure and take over the running of Aisleby farm, which is presently fallow on a lease agreement, using effluent from the three Aisleby waste water treatment plants. The viability of this arrangement depends on the availability of sufficient effluent to irrigate a minimum area of 50 hectares," reads the report.

As it stands, once council has approved the partnership agreement, the necessary documentation will be drafted, detailing the partnership agreement and signed by representatives of BCC and the developers.