Africa-Press – Namibia. The City of Windhoek has invited homeowners to apply for unused 10-metre land strips bordering their properties, sparking debate over fairness and urban planning.
This applies to residences near river beds or other portions of unused land between properties and public spaces under the Distribution and Future Usage of Public Open Spaces in Windhoek policy.
City chief executive Moses Matyayi yesterday said this applies to pieces of open, unused land directly bordering private properties.
“If it’s a riverbed, and the space between your house and the river is more, you could then apply for that strip, but it must be 10 metres from your boundary line. It can be anywhere where there has been no development next to your property,” he said.
Matyayi said the strips of land can only be bought by the person whose property borders them.
“I can apply for my 10-metre strip that is just directly next to my erf. But I cannot go and buy the 10-metre strip next to somebody else’s erf,” he said.
The chief executive explained that the expansion of the boundary could be fenced off as it becomes part of the homeowner’s erf.
Matyayi dismissed concerns that wealthy people could abuse the system.
“Nobody can abuse it, because it only applies to a property next to you,” he said.
However, professional urban designer and architect Winfried Holze accuses the city council of shifting its responsibility to keep river beds clean onto residents.
“The City of Windhoek is supposed to maintain these rivers, keep them free of bushes, and they’re not doing it. So they decide ‘okay, why don’t we just give these pieces of land to the owners and let the owners clean these rivers?’.
“But a river is sometimes 15m, sometimes 20m. What about the other metres? You’re not solving the problem. I think that is giving false hope,” he says.
Holze says some residents in affluent areas have for years been applying for these pieces of land – unsuccessfully so.
“There are people in Ludwigsdorf and so on, who also wanted to buy, but then they stopped that. Also in Pioneerspark, those people who were along the river, but they denied them to buy this,” he said.
Landless People’s Movement city councillor Sade Gawanas last week took part in community engagements with residents at Katutura’s Nama and Damara areas to explain the process of applying for and purchasing these portions of land.
She told Desert FM that business owners do not qualify to apply for the purchasing of open spaces.
“When you want to have the 10-metre strip and you want to either maybe start a business or something, that is a different process,” she said.
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