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Golden Sibanda
PROHIBITIVELY high cost of land is one of the major hindrances to the delivery of decent residential housing in a country where the majority earn very little, one of Zimbabwe’s eminent urban planning experts says.

Renowned former Harare City town planner Percy Toriro said a mere $10 out of $20 to $50 per square metre price of land goes to planning, servicing, surveying, road construction, water and sewer reticulation systems.

“This breakdown shows that either land is very expensive or developers are profiteering. Studies in Zimbabwe have shown that the other significant driver of land prices is administration, whether by developers, local authorities or cooperatives,” the ex-town planner said.

Sometimes, Mr Toriro said, as much as 40 percent or more of the total cost of land is attributed to administration and that is “totally inefficient and unfair.”

The high cost of land consequently inflates the eventual price of residential stands, putting them beyond the reach of many home seekers.

Yet according to article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, access to accommodation is one of fundamental human rights.

Local authorities in the country’s major towns and cities have been battling to provide decent accommodation to residents, but this has been curtailed by resource shortages and also uncoordinated planning.

Experts say public private partnerships will be key in order to make meaningful progress in addressing access to decent residential housing.

Zimbabwe has about 1,25 million people on the official housing waiting list, but this figure is considered to be conservatively low, considering the demand for housing in country with about 14 million people.

“In order to bring down the cost of serviced land we therefore must manage all input cost and reduce those that are not adding value to land development process. Where land is publicly owned, costs should at most be $20 per square metre. If one adds a margin of $10, as profit, then even private sector stands must be $30 per square metre,” he said.

But then, Mr Toriro said it was astonishing that residential stands were being sold for as much as $70 per square metre in Harare and “this was outrageous considering the incomes of the majority” of Zimbabweans.

In a country that has gone through nearly two decades of a continuous economic meltdown, incomes for the majority are very low and irregular.

Often, for the available housing schemes for low income earners, developers and providers of mortgage facilities come up with terms and conditions mostly beyond the capacity of intended beneficiaries.

Faced with challenges of affordable housing, the majority of low income earners have resorted to informal settlements that lack basic ablution facilities, water and electricity, for which planning is haphazard.

Such situations pose serious health hazards to residents and make interventions difficult to coordinate in the event of major diseases outbreaks.