Accra, Ghana's capital, requires a comprehensive structural plan with appropriate execution tactics to address the city's ongoing expansion.
According to Kwadwo Yeboah, acting CEO of the Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority (LUSPA), managing developments in Accra in the next two to three decades will be difficult if efforts are not made to institute an effective land use and spatial plan to guide the city's physical growth and development.
Mr. Yeboah said the messy manner in which Accra was developing, without proper infrastructure, was "disturbing, expensive to maintain," at the commencement of a day's workshop on the drafting of a structured plan for the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) in Accra on Tuesday, April 12, 2022.
"It's worth noting that Accra's center and periphery are both being built without regard for planning restrictions. Uncontrolled urban expansion, slum development and squatter settlement, indiscriminate siting of temporary structures, unauthorized building extensions and change of use, rampant litigation, the proliferation of land guards, as well as natural disasters such as floods" are all problems that Accra faces, he says.
Plan for the structure
The workshop, which was attended by planners from the GAMA's metropolitan, municipal, and district assemblies (MMDAs), representatives from the Department of Urban Roads (DUR), the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), and the Hydrological Services Department, was held to review and solicit input for preliminary reports for the GAMA's structure plan.