Researcher says 161 allotments ‘illegal’

National, Normal
Source:

The National, Thursday 6th September, 2012

By LESLIE OMARO
A LAND board meeting this year has found that of 211 land allotments in the country this year, only 14 have been tendered and gazetted, while 161 are exempt.
An analysis found out that the gazettes were sponsored by the applicants because most of these allotments have one applicant only.
A senior researcher with the National Research Institute, Dr Charles Yala said if it was a public tender then it would attract many applicants.
He said of the 175, six are Urban Development Leases (UDLs) and there was no provision in the Land Act that allowed exemption of UDLs.
“UDLs are supposed to go through a special land board and not this normal land board,” he said.
“We do acknowledge that most of the applications are for residence purposes but it seems most have been built on and applied to formalise.
“This is compromising and should be stopped,” Yala said.
He said the concept of UDL, formerly known as Town Subdivision Lease (TSL), was introduced as a forward planning mechanism to speed up land release.
“It is a concept which promotes the user pay policy and public private partnership,” he said.
Yala said UDL, as it was known in the Physical Planning Act of 1989 (formerly known as TSL) under the Town Planning Ordinance chapter 204, were the same but there was only a slight difference.
“A TSL was given for land within the demarcated town boundaries but UDL covers peripheries and urban fringes,” Yala said.