City of Kigali must firmly remain on course

When the three-month City of Kigali (CoK) notice to move businesses from residential areas was announced in January, it was to a loud outcry by concerned residents. It occasioned such citizen ire (over 50 posted comments in this newspaper’s online platform), as is rarely witnessed of official directives. On the face of it, the directive is reasonable and only meant to implement yet another stage in the Kigali City Master Plan that has been in place for some years now. The plan has zoning guidelines meticulously indicating areas for commercial, residential or dual purposes, and what kinds of businesses can operate from the specific areas. But the debate it has generated, amid appeals to extend the deadline, appears to be not so much about the timing, as that it seems “too black and white”: That is, the directive is aimed at the around 1,000 businesses and NGOs in residential areas to relocate to available space in the new high-rise premises in designated commercial areas. Only that the “grey” areas – the dual purpose zones – have not seen similar development of commercial buildings. The debate, therefore, has essentially been whether the CoK is not moving too fast, forcing it on an unripe economic environment; whether the directive is in sync with the dictates of demand and supply. Aside from concerns of higher rental costs in the new commercial premises which are mainly concentrated in the city centre, there is also the issue of how sustainable the businesses forced to relocate will be in the long run. While businesses and NGOs need for ample parking space and friendlier rental costs in residential areas, there are many others that have organically grown where the people are providing one kind of service or another, say, community-based organisations or hair salons, including the many bar-and-restaurants doing roaring business in residential compounds. The cost in terms of money and the goodwill already earned in their established locations may be too high. Then again, what to do with the available space in the shiny new buildings that stand at only around 50 per cent occupancy? This has had the developers concerned that they may not service their loans. Whichever side of the economic concerns one looks at, it still begs the question, what business model informed the development of the commercial premises? Let me illustrate with a similar debate in Kenya regarding the viability of Konza Technology City, Machakos County, designed to awaken the “Silicon Savannah” – the country’s burgeoning ICT sector. As it is, Konza is something of a dream in realisation. The infrastructure has been mapped out and the necessary utilities are already going up. But it is on the premise the city will attract investors. It is not unlike similar successful initiatives as the Technology Park Malaysia, renowned for light electronic manufacturing, or the Electronic City in Bangalore, India, featuring the world famous Infosys campus. Both were initially built to fit exquisite international standards, and have since been attracting and exporting talent, besides being veritable international ICT hubs. In the same vein, and despite the naysayers, Konza, a public-private initiative, has, according to one recent analysis, “already attracted over 55 private sector companies, 10 government research agencies and two institutions of higher learning from Korea and Germany to put up universities of applied sciences.” But there is also the spectre of hundreds of eerily empty cities throughout China featuring modern high-rise apartment complexes, developed waterfronts, skyscrapers, and even public art. The example of Shenfu, a city northeast of the country, may serve. It spent hundreds of millions of dollars hoping to attract the floods of people in China’s unprecedented rural-to-urban migration. As variously captured in international media features, what the city planners didn’t anticipate was that the country’s economy would slow down dramatically. The jobs dried up and the people never came. This has been replicated in the hundreds of China’s new cities. So, to attempt an answer on whether Kigali is ripe for the businesses’ relocation: my layman belief is its growth is natural and organic, keeping with its changing needs and stated aspirations. The developers’ and businesses’ concerns are two sides of the same coin and should, eventually, be amicably resolved. The CoK must firmly remain on course in its development agenda.

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City of Kigali must firmly remain on course