Assessing the impacts of unplanned development on the sustainability of Kampala city (a case study of Kawempe division)
Abstract
Urban planning should be prioritized because unchecked growth reduces the availability of
essential services, which lowers living standards. Planned urban development follows the
traditional planning form of planning, servicing, building, and occupation, which occurs in a
controlled urban development sphere. The goal of the current study, which used a descriptive
cross-sectional design, was to determine the extent, causes, and implications of unplanned urban
expansion in Kampala's Kawempe division. MS Excel was used to evaluate the study's quantitative
data while emerging themes were used to examine the qualitative data from key informant
interviews.
Investigations into the extent of unplanned development in Kawempe revealed that only 17.9% of
the developers claimed to have fully complied with the development guidelines currently in effect
in the area under study, which required building structures that were appropriate for residential
neighborhoods. The majority of the developers had built both commercial buildings (19.4%) and
multi-dwelling structures (62.7%). Overall, 66.3% of developers requested building approvals for
their projects, and 63.5% of those requests were granted; as a result, these developers fully
complied with all the rules and specifications listed in the division's KDPF standards. To the study,
the high rate of population growth brought on by rural-to-urban migration, the fact that policy
directives on urban development are not accurately enforced, corruption in government
institutions, and the expensive and time-consuming process of getting approvals for the plans are
among the causes of unplanned developments. As a consequence, unplanned development has
resulted in a malfunctioning waste drainage system that has caused a lot of water and air pollution,
the development of substandard structures, and insecurity due to huge population growth than
earlier planned. The report recommends that there should be close coordination between the
agencies responsible for authorizing development projects to guarantee that developers adhere to
the rules and guidelines for development in the Kawempe. The regularization of already-developed
properties that meet the minimal conditions for development should be taken into consideration.
The current policy directives guiding development in this area also need to be reviewed.