THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has withdrawn its March 2014 decision to stop the sale of residential stands on pre-sale in order to begin allocation of stands due to an increasing housing backlog.
BY NQOBANI NDLOVU
This was after the BCC noted that council had only managed to service 15 000 housing stands in 15 years, despite a housing backlog of more than 100 000.
The resumption of land sales was revealed in a recent council report by the council’s lands and housing committee.
The measure had been implemented to stop desperate homeseekers from setting up illegal settlements in the city.
“Council rescinds its decision of March 2014 where the sale of stands on pre-sale was put on hold so that the director of housing and community services may proceed with the sale of pre-sale stands that are now ready for allocation,” the minutes read.
“It was resolved stands be sold based on estimated prices with the final stand prices being determined at completion of servicing.”
Under the pre-sale model, the beneficiaries used to provide necessary funds for servicing of their stands after entering into a payment plan with the council in which an initial deposit of 25-35% was paid.
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The balance was then paid on final completion of servicing of the stands.
In the new model, council said beneficiaries would pay their deposits into a CABS account as the local authority had sought mortgage funding from the bank to start servicing the stands.
“It is proposed that council seeks an overdraft from CABS for the servicing of these projects so that council is able to start servicing the stands whilst these are being sold. The beneficiaries would then pay their purchase prices into a CABS account as payment of the overdraft that council would have sourced.
“A selected number of stands within each project could be allocated to beneficiaries that qualify for mortgage finance so that CABS avails mortgage funding to facilitate co-ordinated super-structure development,” the council minutes said.
The committee was said to have resolved that it was imperative to deliver the stands to avoid a situation where residential land seekers would be forced to get stands from sprouting unserviced settlements in the outskirts of the city.
Between 2007 and 2008, council turned to Umguza Rural District Council, seeking more land to address shortages of housing and development space.
However, the talks collapsed because of hyper-inflation. But Bulawayo mayor Martin Moyo in March said negotiations had been re-opened.
