Investigating the effects of urban physical planning and development control on the infrastructure development in Kampala City

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to investigate the effects of urban physical planning and development control on the infrastructure developments in the planning areas of Nakasero IV parish and undeclared planning areas of Kasubi parish in Kampala City. This study was carried out as a case study and the data was collected through field observations, face-to-face interviews and questionnaire survey. Sampling techniques included simple random sampling for the questionnaire survey and field observations and purposive sampling for the face-to-face interviews The findings show that physical development control has in most cases achieved little as far as infrastructure development is concerned. This is manifested in the mismatch between approved and observed infrastructure developments, absence of detailed schemes at parish levels, presence of in formal developments especially in declared planning areas, and the continued reliance on out-of-date legislations among others. The study identified several challenges and problems faced in implementing physical planning and development control policies including budgetary constraints, inadequate physical planning and development control personnel, inadequate logistics, land tenure systems and conflicting land management procedures, limited public awareness on plan and land title application procedures, bureaucratic procedures and requirements for plan approval, poor coordination by the planning authorities and failure to take immediate actions against reported cases of illegal developments. The study recommends that in order to foster better practices of development control, it requires allowing applicants to pay approval fees in installments, declaring all parishes planning areas with a clear implementation policy, change of land ownership to lease hold, streamline physical planning and development control with Buganda Land Board operations, publicity of physical planning guidelines and requirements, using GIS and remote sensing as tools for monitoring and controlling developments in the study areas.