Harare City Council says that it does not have plans to demolish houses within its area of jurisdiction, but intends to regulate unregulated houses.
This was said by the City’s spokesperson Michael Chideme on Wednesday. Said Chideme:
We are not going to demolish houses and we currently have no plans to demolish houses.
What we want to do is to regulate unregulated houses.
We want to see who owns what and where so that we can make the houses official in our systems.
As the city fathers, we are also hoping that this regulation process will help us to see where there is a double allocation of stands.
The same process will also help us to see where there is unused land so that we plan knowingly.
This follows complaints by the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA), which argued that the City was using a colonial-era by-law to demolish houses.
CHRA director, Lorraine Mupasiri-Sani said:
The 1979 by-law upon which council is relying on when implementing demolitions is unconstitutional.
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