Source: Land developers ordered to stop extortionate pricing – herald
Trust Freddy-Herald Correspondent
PRIVATE land developers have been ordered to immediately stop the extortionate pricing of servicing housing stands sliced from cheap State land, with Government threatening to legally enforce rigid pricing caps to protect home-seekers.
The stern policy directive was issued by National Housing and Social Amenities Minister, Professor Paul Mavima, at a high-profile stakeholder breakfast engagement in Harare yesterday.
Prof Mavima expressed displeasure with the trend where private players acquire vast tracts of urban State land at concessionary rates, only to partition them into residential stands priced far beyond the reach of ordinary civil servants and low-to-middle income earners.
He warned that this speculative bottleneck directly threatens the affordable housing targets anchored within the National Development Strategy 2 (NDS2) blueprint.
“Urban State land is available, but we need to have the appropriate ways of parcelling it out,” Minister Mavima said.
“Most of the time, it’s actually Government which is giving this land to private developers, and sometimes at a very low cost. But once it’s in private hands, then it becomes very expensive.”
This comes as the country is targeting to deliver an additional one million housing units under the National Development Strategy 2, building on gains recorded during the first phase of the country’s economic blueprint.
To restore sanity and order to urban development, Prof Mavima revealed that the Government is evaluating two definitive policy interventions designed to curb profiteering in the sector.
The first option will introduce a mandatory pricing cap, setting a maximum legal threshold that private developers cannot exceed when costing and selling land originally acquired from the State.
Alternatively, the State will review its own land-disposal mechanisms to ensure it sells land to developers at realistic values, with the resulting revenue ring-fenced to fund public social housing, green energy infrastructure, and bulk services.
“If a developer is coming to develop land that they have acquired from Government, there should be a threshold that they can go in terms of costing that land,” he added.
“There are a lot of other things that we have to deal with, control, and bring order into the governance of everything.”
Prof Mavima reiterated that under NDS2 (2026–2030), urban land allocations must directly benefit ordinary citizens by ensuring shelter remains accessible and affordable.
He added that while the Government remains fully committed to working with the private sector through Public-Private Partnerships, such alliances must be anchored on transparency, fair pricing, and mutual accountability.
The Environmental Management Agency Harare provincial manager, Mr Leon Mutungamiri, reminded developers that while achieving national targets was essential, regulatory procedures had to be strictly followed, and development on wetlands remained entirely prohibited.
Some of the key stakeholders who attended the meeting included the National Building Society, Shelter Zimbabwe, Cyber Tech Bank, and the Dialogue on Shelter Trust.
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