The Sunday Mail
THE Chitungwiza municipality will not demolish illegally built houses as earlier threatened as plans are already underway to regularise the structures.
Town Clerk Mr George Makunde said the council set a one-month deadline to complete regularisation.
“The municipality has ceased the demolitions; we are on a standstill at the moment, there are no demolitions of houses until we get the directive to do so. There are other people who are taking advantage of the situation.
“We are also appealing to the residents that they should not take advantage that council has stopped demolishing and start building illegal structures again without approval. We are aware of some of the people who have already started constructing houses; some have started building in areas such as Unit N,” said Mr Makunde.
The municipality has completed crafting a master plan to incorporate those without documentation into the council’s billing system.
“The regularisation concept has been approved. The Urban Development Corporation has also finished working on the layout plan in which council will have a timeline of one month to regularise all those who are not in council’s database so that they can start paying rates.
“Some people have been resisting the regularisation process because they think council is going to demolish their houses, but we want to bring certainty,” said Mr Makunde.
Suspension of demolitions comes after Zanu-PF Secretary for Administration Cde Didymus Mutasa said destroying houses was against the letter and spirit of Zim-Asset.
Earlier, the Chitungwiza Magistrates’ Courts ordered the municipality to stop demolitions.
Chitungwiza, however, was pushing the court to declare allocation of the stands in question illegal and approve demolitions which would have affected 14 000 families.
This was because some officials had unprocedurally allocated stands and pocketed the money.
Local authorities do not authorise construction of houses on wetlands, under electricity pylons, and on sewer lines and waterways.
