High population will affect housing - Govt

By Taddeo Bwambale

The Government has warned that the country’s high population growth rate will increase housing shortage, as more people move from rural to urban areas.

Samuel Mabala, the commissioner for urban development in the lands ministry said the high urbanization brought due to high population growth rate was posing challenges to planning.

“We are not planning for urban areas fast enough yet the rate at which people are moving to towns is way above the natural average,” he said.

The country’s housing shortage stands at about 700,000 units, while Kampala alone has a shortage of over 100,000 units, according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBoS).

Mabala attributed the problem partly to the low capacity to plan for towns and municipalities, leading to severe housing shortages.

“Kampala alone needs at least 60 planners but has less than 20. We need to plan the urban areas to address the housing shortage,” he said.

He was presenting a paper on the ‘Challenges of urbanization to Uganda’s development’ at the National Conference on Population and Development at Speke Resort Munyonyo.

He observed that while the country's population was growing at 3% per annum, the urban population is growing at 5.2%, putting pressure on housing and other land resources. It is estimated that by 2050, Uganda will have a population of 110 million. 

Mabala criticized the design of most housing estates, saying the model was leading to wastage of land resources.

“We are creating bedroom towns because we are not planning the housing estates well. An estate should not only cater for accommodation but also other services that do not require people to travel to other areas,” Mabala said.

Mabala explained that the way most housing estates are designed was increasing the cost of infrastructure such as roads.

“The cost of constructing one kilometre of road is about $1m. But you find up to 10 kilometres of roads connecting an estate housing just 12,000 people, yet a well-planned estate can serve up to 200,000 people,” he said. 

He disclosed that under the National Urban Policy to be released next year, the Government would promote the creation of satellite towns. A satellite town or city is a concept in urban planning that refers to smaller, self-sustaining municipalities that are adjacent to larger metropolitan areas or cities.