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Bad building demolition awaits Land Bill

Blantyre City Council (BCC) decision to rid the city of buildings that are an eyesore is awaiting the enactment of the Land Bill, it has been learnt.

BCC’s director of Town Planning and Estate Services, Costly Chanza, said in an interview this week that most buildings that scorn the image of the city stand on freehold land, a fact that prevents the council from intervening.

blantyre-cityHe was asked to explain why the council was not moving on the buildings it marked out with red stars for demolition some years back, but are still standing in some places of the city.

“The challenge that the council faces at the moment is that most of those buildings are standing on freehold land. For that reason, as you know, the council is helpless to move because it does not have powers over that land,” said Chanza.

“We cannot tear down those buildings because the owners will take us to court,” he said.

Chanza declined to mention some of the buildings in question which were being safeguarded by the privilege of standing on freehold land.

“The Land Bill, which is being processed, will help to sort out some of these things by, among other things, giving powers to the city to intervene where acts of land holders is affecting the city’s integrity,” he said.

Chanza could not specify the stage at which the exercise of formulating the bill was, only saying the process was on track.

Some of the red marks date as a far back as the time when first Malawi president late Dr Kamuzu Banda was still in power in the late 1980s.

Recently, such buildings have been joined up by those whose construction is sub-substandard, clearly outside the acceptable engineering norms, raising eye brows as to how they get certified.

 

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National News

Bad building demolition awaits Land Bill

Blantyre City Council (BCC) decision to rid the city of buildings that are an eyesore is awaiting the enactment of the Land Bill, it has been learnt.

BCC’s director of Town Planning and Estate Services, Costly Chanza, said in an interview this week that most buildings that scorn the image of the city stand on freehold land, a fact that prevents the council from intervening.

He was asked to explain why the council was not moving on the buildings it marked out with red stars for demolition down some years back, but are still standing in some places of the city.

“The challenge that the council faces at the moment is that most of those buildings are standing on freehold land. For that reason, as you know, the council is helpless to move because it does not have powers over that land,” said Chanza.

“We cannot tear down those buildings because the owners will take us to court,” he said.

Chanza declined to mention some of the buildings in question which were being safeguarded by the privilege of standing on freehold land.

“The Land Bill, which is being processed, will help to sort out some of these things by, among other things, giving powers to the city to intervene where acts of land holders is affecting the city’s integrity,” he said.

Chanza could not specify the stage at which the exercise of formulating the bill was, only saying the process was on track.

Some of the red marks date as a far back as the time when first Malawi president late Dr Kamuzu Banda was still in power in the late 1980s.

Recently, such buildings have been joined up by those whose construction is sub-substandard, clearly outside the acceptable engineering norms, raising eye brows as to how they get certified.

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