Poor planning in hard infrastructure such as buildings and roads are major obstacles facing urban planners in preparing strategic master plans in the country’s big cities and towns, stake holders said in Dar es Salaam on Friday.
They were discussing challenges of implementing urban master plans during a workshop organised by Dar es Salaam based Uongozi Institute, which was attended by representatives from different parts of Tanzania as well as Prof Ivan Turok from the University of Cape Town.
The Tanzania Cities Network (TACINE) National Coordinator Philotheusy Mbogoro said urban planners in the country encounter many challenges and the government should help curb them.
“Such challenges include inadequate database for decision making to support rural development, lack of participation of local people, resulting in spatial structures that do not support urban livelihood and investment,” Mbogoro said.
He noted that decentralization of urban governance mandates infrastructure and economic planning as well as fiscal management so that property taxes remain in the cities to contribute to development of urban planning.
Mbogoro stressed the need to use master plans as governance tool, an indicator in local government performance monitoring database to benchmark performance of cities as a driver of development for urban development strategy.
The Minister for Public Service Management, President’s Office, Hawa Ghasia, said most urban master plans in the country were created during the colonial era so there were challenges in planning for development.
“It is right time to arrange and plan our cities as well as develop them considering the needs for residential estates as well as industrial estates,” she said, calling for the involvement mayors and local government officers in the implementation of urban master plans. On his part Prof Turok said planning is very important for the future since its impacts affect performance of people’s development.
“Enforcement of laws and regulations in the cities, including legally binding master plans is required.”
Urbanisation can drive development only if effective urban planning will consider strategic city wide framework to guide development, said Prof Turok who is Deputy Executive Director in the Economic Performance and Development.
He said there should be detailed local plans to determine the location nature and texture of development density and infrastructure standards.
“Investment in urban infrastructure is aligned to the plan, enabling and unlocking development, connecting places, creating values and even preventing the country from unnecessary disasters.”
He added that urban planning is essential among planning institutions, utility agencies, private sector and landowners, integrating and establishing a multi-stake holders’ platform in planning and implementation.
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