Investigating the impact of land use policies and plans in development of vacant land in Kira municipality

Abstract

The study aimed at investigating the impact of land use policies and plans in development of vacant land in Kira Municipality. It was made up of three specific objectives which included; to identify the level of adherence to existing land use policies for vacant land development in Kira municipality; to evaluate the challenges faced by vacant land owners in development of their land in Kira Municipality and to analyze the usage of Google Earth and other mapping tools in developing land use, base maps and establishing distribution of vacant land for Kira Municipality. Literature was reviewed by looking at what had been written by previous researchers on Land use Planning, looked at the legal framework which included the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda of 1995 and the Physical Planning Act of 2010. The study was conducted using a cross sectional research design study. There was a sample size of 60 vacant land owners where by 50 was taken as the valid number of respondents who were chosen through the simple random sampling technique. The researcher primarily collected data with the aid of a self-designed structured 5 point Likert scale questionnaire. There were 60 questionnaires distributed to various vacant land owners in Kira Municipality and only 50 questionnaires were returned while 10 questionnaires were not returned by some vacant land owners. The data collected was then analyzed using statistical measures like descriptive frequencies, standard deviation, mean and cumulative frequencies. Relative Importance Indices were used to rank the Likert scales and the demographic data was presented using tables and bar graphs using the computer software package called SPSS. The results showed that there was need for revision of the existing policy framework in Kira Municipality as well as formulation of newer policies so as to improve on the development of vacant land as well as reducing vacancy period of land. The researcher the concluded that there was need for revision of policy framework where he recommended that; provision of better base maps and improving the land use inventory providing information on the available pieces of vacant land and which developments are best recommended for their development as well as improvement on the Municipal Council governance and structure as well as improving coordination the vacant land owners for better policy making.