By Kingsley Adegboye

Government’s inability to enforce planning laws has been adduced as the major reason behind the plethora of blighted settlements in the nation’s urban areas.
Built environment experts who brainstormed on Creating Livable Cities: A Call For Physical Environment Control Enforcement”  at a breakfast session organised by Messrs  Propertygate Development and Investment Plc last week in Lagos, called for strict compliance with planning laws

The CEO of Propertygate, Mr. Adetokunbo Ajayi opined that  the chaos on Nigerian roads, indiscriminate construction activities that have resulted to the creation of more urban slums than cities are direct consequences of failure to enforce existing development regulations and laws.

According to Ajayi, “the way we shape our cities profoundly affects our quality of life in terms of physical and mental health. It also affects our opportunities for having friends and neighbours as well as we find jobs and hold on to them”.

Ajayi noted that liveable cities attract investment, stimulate local economy and boost real estate value and market. It also makes residents feel good, instil culture of civility and decency as against recklessness and indifference and foster atmosphere for progressive advancement.

In his own submission, Mr. Muyiwa Adelu, a town planner, regretted that although Ikoyi/Victoria Island and Ikeja have model master plans,  “studies  reveal that despite the availability of physical development plans there are deviations from the approved land uses in most of the schemes”.

“Since inception of Lagos state, there have being various urban and regional planning laws and now environmental laws. And the current law of 2010 Urban and Regional Planning Law is determined to change the status quo of haphazard development control

“But it is not detailed enough to accommodate all that are required to enable great city. Parks and gardens which are essential ingredients of a liveable city are left out while laws on cemetery is left to moribund local governments and cremation centres are totally not considered yet in the various development plans within the city”, Citymatters managing partner noted.