Vic Falls City to release 500 stands

 VICTORIA Falls City Council will next month allocate about 500 high-density housing stands to home seekers as the local authority moves towards reducing the ballooning demand for stands.

Victoria Falls became a city in December 2019 and its housing waiting list is over 15 000.

The city has since engaged a surveyor to prepare the land in preparation for allocation to deserving home seekers.

The cost of each stand will be known in due course after the completion of the engineering design process.

The council made a resolution to sell high-density stands behind Mkhosana suburb last year and gave itself a target of 36 months to deliver.

The land is not yet developed for servicing.

Approval was sought from Government to select the pre-serviced stands.

Speaking at a recent full council meeting, council officials said the allocation of stands to residents is long overdue.

The councilors also proposed that 30 percent of the stands be reserved for youths.

The issue was raised by the housing committee which told the house that stands were yet to be handed over to it by management for allocation despite the resolution.

The committee said council was ready to allocate stands once management completed its processes.

“The house needs to know the update because the waiting list is ballooning. Some residents have been on the waiting list for a long time so we need to be guided by technocrats on where we are now,” said the Mayor Councilor Somvelo Dlamini while directing the housing committee to update the house.

His deputy Cllr Patricia Mwale said the agreement was to pre-sell the stands.

Cllr Lungile Nyoni proposed that the council should consider reserving 30 percent of the stands to youths who have capacity to pay for the stands.

Town Clerk Mr Ronnie Dube said the resolution to seal the stands starting next month still stands.

“It will take 36 months from last year for council to deliver but for now even if we allocate the stands won’t be usable.

“After approval by Government council engaged a surveyor and we now have a certificate of survey. We are currently in the process of engineering design that will give us costing and we expect to be done at the end of this month.

” We did that in BB7 where people were allocated stands and paid and we used that money to survive the land. We will do that,” said Mr Dube.

BB7 is a low density housing scheme in Victoria Falls.

Nationally,  the housing  backlog is more that 1.2 million and Government targets to deliver more than 200 000 by 2025.

Source: Vic Falls City to release 500 stands (13/02/2023)