Editor, RE: “Mindset change needed to adopt modern housing” (The New Times, October 31). “Where will Nyamirambo residents relocate to when the area undergoes redevelopment seeing that the city is already experiencing severe housing shortage?” Reading the above paragraph from your article, I think that the City of Kigali needs to learn from Mumbai. There, when developers want to build a high rise or a multi-purpose building like the CHICK complex nearing completion in Nyarugenge, in an area formerly occupied by slums, instead of expropriating the slum dwellers by giving them cash and leave them to fend for themselves or go and set up another slum somewhere, they can build for them condo apartment elsewhere in the city using the money they would have paid them. The advantage of this system is that expropriated slum dwellers will now live in better planned buildings than before and the slum area in the city will be reduced. In our case, if there is any difference between the value of the slum house and that of the new unit provided by the developer, the City of Kigali can assist the expropriated people to acquire mortgages for the difference. Kelly
