Bulawayo is set to get a new suburb with 5 000 residential stands that will be constructed on its outskirts, with the location expected to be incorporated into the city once the delimitation exercise is completed.
The Bulawayo City Council is pushing for an additional six wards to be incorporated into the city during the delimitation exercise, which will see a number of areas that currently fall under the Umguza constituency being incorporated into the city.
The Sunday Mail reports that a private developer is already working on the development of 5 000 serviced stands which will be under the city’s jurisdiction once the delimitation exercise is complete.
This came out in a BCC engineering services report, where the developer, Hencock Ranching has sent a proposal to partner with the local authority in the upgrading and operation of the sewerage services to cater for the new developments. Reads the report:
The standing agreement between the City of Bulawayo and the developer with regards to wastewater treatment is that Hencock Ranching are expected to construct decentralised wastewater treatment facilities to cater for the full extent of their proposed development. However, upon assessing the total volume of sewage to be generated by the full extent of the development, the contractor realised that the wastewater treatment facilities to be constructed will be too costly to consider as stand-alone units.
The developer is working on the upmarket Hopeville, Hopelyn and Hope Estate housing projects, which according to the report will have a shopping mall, three shopping centres, a hotel, seven primary schools, three secondary schools and a lifestyle estate.
The developer is aiming at partnering with the local authority in the operations of Aisleby sewerage treatment works where only one of the three plants is operational and discharging into the Umguza River.