Bulawayo shifts towards high-rise buildings?

BULAWAYO has exhausted its available State land for development, forcing authorities to consider a major shift towards high-rise residential and commercial buildings as the city grapples with growing demand for housing and Government office accommodation.

Bulawayo Provincial Affairs and Devolution Minister Judith Ncube says the shortage of land has become a serious obstacle to the city's development, making it necessary to abandon traditional low-density construction in favour of multi-storey buildings that accommodate more people on smaller pieces of land.

Speaking during the Bulawayo Provincial Development Committee's fourth-quarter meeting at Mhlahlandlela Government Complex, Minister Ncube said the city could no longer afford to continue expanding horizontally.

"Bulawayo has run out of State land and this presents a serious problem," she said.

Minister Ncube proposed the redevelopment of existing Government housing complexes into multi-storey residential buildings as one possible solution to the accommodation crisis.

She cited Government houses in Mabuthweni, where 30 residential units currently occupy land that could potentially accommodate significantly more families if redeveloped.

"We were at the Mabuthweni Government houses where there are 30 of them. If we demolish, say, two, relocate those families and then construct a two-storey building, we will have six families staying on the same land area instead of two," she said.

The proposal would see ageing, low-density Government housing replaced with modern flats, allowing authorities to increase accommodation capacity without acquiring additional land.

Minister Ncube said the approach could also be extended to Government offices and other public infrastructure, ensuring that the limited land available in the city is used more efficiently.

She revealed that a delegation comprising central and local Government officials had previously visited Egypt to study high-rise developments and explore urban planning strategies that could be adopted in Zimbabwe.

"We need to critically analyse our situation and offer solutions to the land space issue. If we move that way, we can actually reduce people's cries over lack of accommodation," she said.

The proposed transformation comes as the Government intensifies efforts to promote vertical urban development across Zimbabwe, with authorities increasingly concerned about the rapid consumption of land through conventional housing and commercial construction.

Local Government and Public Works Minister Daniel Garwe recently announced that Government would reject urban development plans that fail to reserve at least 40 percent of development land for multi-storey buildings.

Addressing the Zimbabwe Regional and Urban Planning Annual Conference in Bulawayo last week, Minister Garwe warned that continued horizontal expansion threatened agricultural land and could undermine the country's long-term food security.

"We are aware that Zimbabwe has got boundaries, just like the Republic of South Africa, Botswana or Zambia. We are an agriculture-based region. Our driving focus in our economies is agriculture," he said.

"If we decide to continue building horizontally, expansively eating into agricultural land, the region will become a net importer of food in no time. So what do we do to circumvent that? We must build better vertically."

Minister Garwe said the National Human Settlements Policy required developers and planning authorities to allocate at least 40 percent of land earmarked for development to flats and other multi-storey residential structures.

He warned that compliance would be mandatory, with authorities instructed not to approve development plans that failed to meet the requirement.

"If there is any plan without that provision, that plan will be struck off the register without negotiation," he said.

"We must set aside 40 percent of our land for development for the construction of flats."

The minister said the policy would also extend to commercial developments, including shopping centres and office complexes, which would be encouraged to adopt multi-storey designs rather than occupying large tracts of land.

For Bulawayo, the proposed shift could significantly reshape the city's urban landscape, which has historically been characterised by extensive low-rise residential suburbs and commercial developments.

However, implementing the strategy would require substantial investment in construction, infrastructure and urban renewal, particularly in older residential areas where existing buildings may need to be demolished and occupants temporarily relocated.

The transition would also require careful planning to ensure that water supplies, sewerage systems, electricity networks, roads and other essential services can support higher population densities.

While the shortage identified by Minister Ncube relates specifically to State land, the proposed redevelopment strategy could provide a longer-term solution to accommodation pressures while reducing the need for further outward expansion.

If implemented, the policy could mark one of the most significant changes to Bulawayo's urban development approach in decades, replacing traditional low-rise expansion with a more compact, vertically developed city.