City council consults public on master plans

An architectural design of Kigali Master Plan. The New Times / File.

The master plans for Kicukiro and Gasabo districts have been taken to the grass roots to enable city residents give their views on them, city officials have said.

The master plan for Nyarugenge District has since been completed.

According to the officials, residents’ feedback will be considered in the final master plan which will be out in December this year and the views will be collected at the sector offices where all designs of the master plans will be displayed.

According to Lilian Mupende, the Director of Kigali City One Stop Centre, this exercise will also help citizens better understand the zoning plan, a tool that is used to determine what development has been designated in a particular area within Kigali City.

“We will for a period of two weeks create awareness and gather feedback on the ongoing zoning plan for individual sectors. We also want people to know about the entire master plan,” Mupende said.

The views and feedback from the sectors will be collected  at the sector level before being forwarded to the City of Kigali.

Other feedback will be collected via facebook (Kigalicity2040).

Speaking to this paper, the Kigali’s Director of Media and Communication, Bruno Rangira, said the plan also accommodates more apartments than bungalows in residential areas to mitigate the growing shortage of housing within the city.

Kigali contracted Surbana International Consultants, a technical firm based in Singapore to review the planning, direction and strategies for the entire city while integrating all the previous plans and development initiatives.

Surbana will also prepare the detailed master plan, urban design (for key areas) and also develop control guidelines for Gasabo and Kicukiro districts.

The consultants cite the radial city concept, which ensures securing of adequate land for future growth in a planned manner, adding that it protects city density by diverting traffic from the city centre while protecting green areas by encouraging high density development along radial axes.

Currently, the city measures 731 square kilometres with a population of about 1.3 million and a household size of 4.8 million.

It is believed that the city population would more than double to 2.9 million by 2025 and probably five million in the long run. 

City officials say the master plan aims at curtailing urbanisation to 35 percent so as to preserve all natural assets and create a compact city structure.

As a means to facilitate the construction of residential apartments within the country’s towns, the government passed the condominium law that will facilitate people to buy condos from apartment blocks without necessarily having to buy the entire building.

http://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/index.php?i=15071&a=56590