Call made for urban planner

The government needs to set up an agency to be in charge of urban development plans for towns and cities, an official says.
“If that was a priority for the country, all the towns and cities would have master plans which they give to the city authorities,” said Max Kep, the executive
director to the Office of Urbanisation.
“Nobody should build anywhere. Everyone builds according to the zone and plan that has been prepared and approved (by the city authority). That’s what everybody should do.
“But at the moment nobody does the urban development plan. It’s like ad-hoc. The county does not have an agency that does plan-making on the ground and then people will do the infrastructure development and roads.”
Kep said that in the absence of an urban development planning authority people make their own plans then take it to the National Capital District Commission for approval.
“Maybe NCD does some level of planning but I think at the national level we should have for the country’s physical development plan,” he said.
He said an urban development plan would look at land for agriculture, land reserved for the future, and land for the towns and cities.
“There has got to be political will to have the country developed by plan and not by default,” he said.
Kep said one of the roles of the Office of Urbanisation is to look at the development challenges associated with urbanisation.
“Let’s start planning how we want our cities to look like, when we have the opportunity,” he said. “We have the privilege of knowing how (other countries) have done their urbanisation (planning).
“When their cities turned into slums or over-congested, it’s very costly to reverse it. But we are a young country, so we should be looking well in advance.”
Meanwhile, the national urbanisation policy has not been implemented because of funding issues.