New dawn as govt launches Council for physical planners

The government yesterday commissioned a nine-member Interim Executive Council (IEC) of the Society of Professional Physical Planners of Uganda, tasking the team to organise and popularise the fraternity and lead land use planning for orderly development of a rapidly urbanising Uganda.

While inaugurating the Council at the National Physical Planning Board headquarters at Crested Towers Building in Kampala, the State Minister for Urban Development, Mr Mario Obiga Kania, said “physical planning is a way of life” and the voice of its professionals should be respected to stem vulnerability of cities to natural disasters.

“The Interim [Executive Council] is a big step in the process of implementing physical planning in Uganda. It is surprising that for a long time, we didn’t have this process of recognising physical planners, yet even during the colonial times, they did physical planning. Places like Kololo hill were reserved for particular buildings. People could think of physical planning [then],” he said.

The minister appointed members of the IEC pursuant to Section 25 and other provisions of the Physical Planners’ Registration Act, which became operational on January 20.

The duties of the interim council chaired by Mr Brian Odella include instituting structures and organising within a year, the inaugural general meeting of the society of physical planners for election of substantive office bearers.

Among the members of the Council is Mr Tabu Butagira, the managing editor of Nation Media Group-Uganda (NMG-U), who obtained a first degree in Urban Planning from Makerere University and studied journalism in the United States as a Fulbright (Hubert H. Humphrey) fellow before pursuing graduate studies in International Relations/Security in the United Kingdom as a Chevening scholar.

In his acceptance speech, chairman Odella said the professional gaps created by lack of legal framework in the past to regulate the work and registration of physical planners, birthed entry of masqueraders in the profession.

Physical planning, alternately called urban or spatial planning, relates to the ordering of land to competing uses for organised developments, including human settlements, towns/cities and the hinterlands.

It deals with allocation of spaces to juxtapose compatible and separate incompatible land uses in order to create aesthetic, functional, productive and livable towns and countryside.

But perennial underfunding, lower ranking of the profession on national development agenda and legal voids meant physical developments on the ground preceded or ignored planning standards set out in structure and detailed plans.

The result: urban sprawl where neighbourhoods are inaccessible, houses block waterways to cause flooding, heritage sites or structures are destroyed and transportation infrastructure is a mess that torments under-served and insecure urban dwellers.  

In his address yesterday, minister Kania tasked the IEC to activate the society of professional physical planners to deliver for Uganda well planned cities and regions, adding “this is the opportunity for you to start singing your song”.

“If you allow other to sing your song, they will sing it and dance to it badly, because they don’t know how a physical planning song is sung,” he said, cryptically.

The 2010 Physical Planning Act, amended in 2020, declares the who of Uganda --- where urbanisation rate has suddenly hit 37 percent from 24 percent due to the creation of new cities --- a planning area, meaning no physical development should take place anywhere in the country without approval of the local planning committee.

“I thank the ministry [of Lands, Housing and Urban Development] and government for the effort that has been put in place to promote professional physical planning, starting with the legal framework and the policy that has been passed and the technical backstopping from the ministry to different local governments and physical development plan,” IEC chairman Odella said.

Dr Amanda Ngabirano, the chairperson of the National Physical Planning Board, said the commissioning of the Interim Executive Council was overdue and tasked the members to focus on ridding the country of unplanned developments and engender professionalism among practitioners.

In a comments on the sidelines of yesterday’s event, Ms Ann Achom, a member, said the inauguration of IEC “is the first step to getting the world to know what we [physical/urban planners] can do but alsorepresent the communities that are usually in need of our services”.

“They don’t know that they need us. We shall go out there and be visible,” she said.

The members

Name                                PositionMr Brian Odella                   ChairpersonMr Denis Tugume                    TreasurerMr Wilson Awuzu                    SecretaryMs Namuli Hafisa                     MemberMs Ruth Nakatudde G               MemberMs Ann Achom                        MemberMr Tabu F Butagira                   MemberDr Amanda Ngabirano             Ex-officioMr Vincent B Byendaimira       Ex-officio