Kogi NITP presents draft town planning standard to public

Kogi state chapter of the Nigeria Institute of Town Planners has presented a draft Town Planning Regulatory Standard to the public for their inputs towards achieving a people-based urban and regional development law. Th e presentation was to enable stakeholders in the state to air their views on the best way to achieving a better town planning framework for the state.

In his keynote address, former General Manager, Kogi Town Planning and Urban Development Board, Mr. Isah Icahaba , said town planning was critical in development, adding that planning standards must take into consideration the socio dynamic nature of human beings being planned for. “If the planning law and standards are not implementable then something is wrong somewhere with the law.

It could be that the laws are not formulated with the people”. He observed that over 60 per cent of planning standards had direct foreign infl uences from colonised planning standards like the European Reserved Area (ERA) now converted to Government Reserved Area (GRA), adding that the best was to involve experts globally and locally in tune with evolving urbanising challenges.

Chairman of the NITP draft committee Mr. Joe Alassan , described planning as key to achieving sustainable development, but regretted that Kogi state, created in 1991 with inherited number of cities, did not have master plans to guide physical development. Also the immediate past National Secretary of the NITP, Nathaniel Atebie, said there was need to properly scrutinise the draft and come out with a clean and workable document for the state. Mr. Dan Alonge, state chapter chairman of the NITP expressed the hope that Kogi Government would adopt the fi nal document, saying this would help guide physical and sustainable development of the state.

Leave a Reply