City of Kigali authorities on Tuesday held a lengthy meeting with home-owners in Kigali’s largest unplanned settlement – Kangondo I, Kangondo II and Kibiraro I zones of Nyarutarama – to chart the way forward regarding their relocation and the envisioned redevelopment of the area.

During the meeting, Kigali  City Mayor Pascal Nyamulinda, accompanied by Stephen Rwamulangwa, the Mayor of Gasabo District, among others, laboured to convince residents that their properties will be fairly valued and people offered better houses in a better place in Kicukiro District, to no avail.

Residents are averse to the idea of being given homes in Kicukiro’s Busanza neighborhood. They told authorities that they prefer monetary compensation so they can make their own choices.

Last September city businessman Denis Karera told The New Times that his Savannah Creek project would redevelop the shanty neighbourhood, commonly known as ‘Bannyahe’, for its lack of proper sewerage system. The developer also acquired about 27 hectares of land in Busanza, in Kicukiro District, to build better houses for 780 families.

Before residents had their say, Nyamulinda highlighted "the truth” regarding the matter, especially the fact that the city master plan must be implemented.

He said: "We’ve always listened to you and we always have to come again and share thoughts and find solutions to problems together but I also have to tell you the truth.

‘‘The truth is; the master plan is a law. Another truth is that 75 per cent of the city settlements are unplanned and Rwandans cannot carry on living like this. We would be paying no attention to the fact that our future generation will also require proper housing.

"When reimbursement is mentioned you think about money. But the other truth, which will not please most of you, is that most of you who have very small plots, say 250 square metres, will end up making a loss if given money. You can’t even get construction permits,” he added.

The government, the city mayor said, does not plan for individuals, but looks after the interests of all and, as such, was not inclined to come up with a solution that causes more problems.

"We don’t want to see people relocate from one area and go create another unplanned settlement elsewhere,” he told the residents who listened patiently but later rejected his ideas.

Alternative housing within city

Some property owners also stressed that instead of being moved to the margins of the city, they should be given alternative housing within the city. This, they said, is possible if only planners could consider it. Residents indicated that they are not unmindful to the authorities’ long-term planning efforts but critical welfare matters should not be overlooked.

Jean de Dieu Shikama pointed out that city authorities intervened without allowing residents a chance to deal directly with the developer.

Shikama added: "I am totally against unplanned settlements. We lived here long before the master plan came but now that it is in place, let us move with it but it should not be a liability. Build houses and let those who want to buy them buy but allow those who don’t want a chance to move to where they want”.

Antoinette Mushimiyimana, a mother of three who has lived in the area for 10 years, told city authorities that she was employed in Nyabugogo, a suburb of the city and would face added financial difficulties while commuting between her workplace and Busanza.

"The bus fare from here to Nyabugogo is not the same as that from Busanza. How would you expect me to feed my children,”? she asked.

According to Mushimiyimana, city authorities should consider several other reasonable options. One, she said, would be residents being helped to construct houses in available plots in nearby areas for the developer who is going to construct high-end apartments in the area to develop one section for the residents and the other for himself.

Evelyne Uwanyiligira, another local landlord, was emphatic noting that in nearby Kinyinya, there were new good houses that would fit with their needs rather than being removed from the city.

"Even in the RSSB zone in Gacuriro there are newly completed houses. Get us houses there and we will be happy there.”

Residents requested city authorities to rethink the relocation plan. Later, Nyamulinda told the gathering that "what is clear is that you all want money” but he did not indicate that his office would grant their wish.

Even though he somewhat suggested that, maybe, it could be possible that the government could avail the money, he reiterated his initial submissions, adding that another meeting will be convened to provide everyone with details of their individual properties’ worth. The next meeting, he hopes, will lead to a conclusion.

The mayor later told The New Times that: "It will take probably two weeks for all these people to go to the sector office and be given the results of the valuation exercise and then from there we are going to come back and discuss again”.

According to Josephine Malonza, an Architect and Urban Designer attached to the University of Rwanda’s School of Architecture and the Built Environment, the debate of appropriation versus expropriation in real estate development can be a complex jigsaw puzzle.

Malonza told The New Times that as the world continues to urbanise and globalise, increasingly more and more multifaceted energy is put into promoting, protecting and articulating the significance of people’s involvement in the construction of a better world that we all aspire for.

She added: "Even at the global scene, the operating concepts in urban development seem to be getting more and more individualistic and property-based at the expense of social relations; where the rights of private property and profit is rated over and above all other notions of rights one can think of.  This has resulted into the exclusion of parts of the urban society from qualities and benefits of urban life.”

Malonza noted that Rwanda’s vision” aims at achieving inclusive and, livable cities, and as such, the case of Bannyahe "needs to be looked at a little more critically.”

The missing link, she said, is "lack of an appropriate participatory approach” in the exercise.

"I suspect the target population has not been well informed and involved enough perhaps because their voice is not valued or the process lacks the right tools or time for that.”

Sustainable societal development ought to allow urban inhabitants to access decisions that produce urban space, meaning that for an urban development to succeed, it should be a tool for social inclusion not exclusion, Malonza said.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw