UGANDA, Masaka | Real Muloodi News | Masaka City Council officials have encountered a difficult challenge in trying to enforce a ban on the partitioning and selling of small plots, since land brokers are reluctant to follow the directive.
To prevent the development of slums in the area, the Masaka City Executive and the Roads Committee jointly adopted a resolution in July this year banning the sale of plots smaller than 50 by 100 feet.
However, the area’s land brokers are still developing and offering small plots for sale, making it difficult to enforce the restriction.
One of the land dealers in Masaka City, Ukasha Ssekanjako, claims that they were not invited to participate in the decision-making process.
He claims it is unfair for the municipal administration to limit the size of plots without first addressing the sellers and landowners, who are the only proprietors of their properties.
Instead, Ssekanjako recommends that the municipal authorities demarcate utility service lanes and free up highways, especially in freshly annexed areas, so residents don’t occupy them.
Another Masaka real estate agent, Charles Ssemuddu, is unconcerned with adhering to the rule since he claims it excludes many individuals, particularly young people, who want to buy property in the city.
To accommodate low-income workers who would want to live in the city, he suggests that the City administration decrease the threshold of the plots to at least 30 by 50 metres.
The lowest price for a site of 50 by 100 feet on the outskirts of the City, according to Ssemuddu, is 15 million Shillings, which he claims is out of reach for many locals.
Ssemuddu expresses concern that the strategy would lead to circumstances in which more individuals band together to purchase a single standard plot and eventually divide it into very small portions.
He claims that this could even result in the development of harsher slum communities.
The City Planning Department has been urged by Ssemuddu to take into account zoning various town areas to assign to multiple types of people based on their salaries.
The enforcement of the restriction on the sale of plot sizes, he claims, is extremely difficult, especially when it comes to privately held land.
However, Florence Namayanja, the mayor of Masaka City, claims that their stance supports the town’s appropriate development following the provisions of the National Physical Plan.
The physical planning department and the law enforcement teams are instructed to prevent any development on little pieces of property, thus she has cautioned the people to avoid purchasing insufficiently sized plots of land.
The National Physical Planning Act of 2010 allows Town Clerks, Sub-County Chiefs of Municipalities, Town Councils, and Sub-Counties the authority to approve plans for any structures in their respective regions of control after consulting with their physical planning officers.
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