A modern satellite city?
Kampala's Nakawa - Naguru Estate has been a highly contested piece of land for the last decade.
10 Years ago, the Ugandan government signed a contract with Opec Prime Properties to redevelop Nakawa- Naguru estate into a satellite city. This contract was to include the construction of 5000 houses , 1747 of these houses for the low-income evicted tents from the land. This project was intended to relive pressure on the central city and contribute towards the development of Kampala but it never materialised. This is particularly important for my project as I observe my site , Owino market as a piece of city. It too has its had a series of investors interested in the land but it is yet to be developed. Recently, in a conversation with a KCCA official, I learnt that many large-scale re-development projects in the city attract investors (mostly foreign) but few of these projects materialise and/or contribute towards the upgrading of the city. This is not just a one-sided view, as often this comes down to territorial disputes about land. Across the city, land titles are unlawful exchanged between individuals and it is difficult to trace the ownership of land. When investors are interested in these pieces of land it becomes even more complicated as at any point, the ownership/authority of the land may change.
Summary of this particular case:
1) Original tenants refused to vacate land - many were forcefully evicted in 2011
2) Major funders pulled out due to the evictions/ Govt declining to be Opec's guarantor
5) Government gave 60 acres to Agha Kahan for construction of a teaching hospital
6) Plots have been parcelled out and sold to individuals - some have started constructing new homes (not within the proposed masterplan)
7) Opec's promised low income housing lost in the sale of plots to individuals.
Issues surrounding the story have appeared regularly in the papers over the last few years; an extensive story about this 60 acre piece of land featured on the front page of the New Vision Newspaper today:
Location of Nakawa- Naguru (Satellite city) master plan (source; more images at: http://www.renderare.com/?p=927)
History Behind the Nakawa- Nagure Estate:
Nakawa- Naguru housing estate was introduced by the British in the 1950's to invite some of the African working population into Kampala; previously they had been pushed out of the city's administrative boundary. This estate provided housing for the African workers walking distance away from their places of work.
Zoning plan by from 1951
In 1994, The Kampala District Structure Plan proposed 'new centres outside the city centre to relieve pressure on the CBD' (in the news article)- The Nakawa sub centre was one of them (http://architects.ug/library/kampala-structure-plan-1994)
