UGANDA, Kabale | Real Muloodi News | According to Kabale Municipality Mayor Emmanuel Byamugisha Sentaro, the municipal council has decided to seek the court’s permission to demolish over 30 dilapidated structures whose owners have failed to follow local regulations on structural designs.
Kabale is one of the districts that will be granted city status in 2026. Building owners must develop three-story complexes under the new local regulations.
The council asserts that they cannot permit decaying structures in the town’s main street or other central areas while the municipality gets ready for status upgrade in 2026.
“The owners were required to present building plans and to date, they have not presented them,” Mr Byamugisha said.
The Kabale Mayor says the council has already assembled a group of experts to compile a list of all the commercial structures that are dilapidated.
Additionally, he stated that there are plans in place to buy property for the construction of sewage lagoons, allowing for the connection of all the commercial buildings along the street to the main National Water and Sewerage Corporation line.
“Several commercial buildings on the main street are not connected to the National Water and Sewerage Corporation sewer line because they are on a lower gradient and cannot dispose of their waste to the existing lagoons in Kigongi Ward,” he said.
The municipal council intends to purchase land for the construction of sewerage lagoons to connect all of the commercial buildings on the street to the main line.
However, some owners of commercial buildings claimed they might not be able to build the necessary structures because of financial difficulties, while others claimed it might not be financially feasible because many potential traders had moved their operations to the recently established districts of Rubanda and Rukiga.
“Constructing a three-storey building on Kabale Main Street requires one to have at least Shs1 billion which is not available because many landlords incurred several losses during the Covid-19 lockdown. Tenants refused to pay rental fees claiming that they were not working. Constructing such a building is like wasting money because tenants refuse to rent premises beyond two floors,” Mr Philip Byamukama, a landlord in Kabale Town, said.
Deus Twekwase, a different landlord, said that rather than tearing down their buildings, the local council officials should contact landlords over the proposed changes.
Kabale is one of 15 new cities approved by Parliament in April 2020, under Article 179(1) (A) of the Constitution on boundary changes and Section 7 (2a) of the Local Governments Act CAP.243 on city declaration.
Arua, Gulu, Jinja, Mbarara, Fort Portal, Masaka, and Mbale began city operations on July 1, 2020, but Hoima, Lira, Soroti, Entebbe, Moroto, Nakasongola, and Kabale were to start in stages.
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