By Correspondent
There have been numerous demolitions around Harare of late with residents suffering financial and emotional pain.
Many have been swindled of money by their cooperative leaders and corrupt Council officials.
However various ways exist through which one can verify whether their area of habitation has been approved for building.
One of these is the use of a Town Masterplan.
According to the American Planning Association’s APA Planners Dictionary, as amended by the Delaware Office of State Planning Coordination, the it defines master planning as follows.
“A master plan is a land use plan focused on one or more sites within an area that identifies access, general improvements and needed infrastructure, and intended to guide growth and development over a number of years and in phases”.
A city master plan document normally contains aerial photos, illustrations, maps, reports, and statistical information to support the planning vision.
The master plan will also help city fathers foster order and deal with challenges that include traffic congestion, lack of a mass public transportation system, urban sprawl, rural to urban migration, poor service provision and rapid population growth among others.
Currently Harare has a master plan that is is 24 years old but experts say a master plan should be reviewed after every 15 years.
This anomaly creates disaster in urban planning.
The local authorities under the Harare Combination Master Plan Authority are Chitungwiza, Goromonzi RDC, Norton, Ruwa, Mazowe, Zvimba and Manyame RDC.
A masterplan is able to show one how the city will grow and what will be in each and every place.
By using this document one is able to pick out anomalies in instances where illegal cooperatives seek to create settlements which are not appearing on the Masterplan.
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