Kinshasa, June 19th, 2021 (CPA).- Experts from the Higher Institute of Architecture and Urbanism, (ISAU), discussed Thursday with the Minister of Urban Planning and Housing, Pius Muabilu, on the proposals to densify the city of Goma, in creating the satellites of « Sake 2 and sake 3 », learned Friday the CPA of the Ministry of Urbanism and habitat.
According to the source, the Reference Urban Plan (PUR) of Goma, was drawn up by ISAU, to allow the relocation of the population, in order to closely follow the evolution of this city in all sectors.
For the Director General of ISAU, Professor René Mpuru, his institute was already planning to develop the Reference Urban Plan for the cities of Goma and Bukavu for the current month of June.
To this end, the head of studies operations at ISAU professor, Corneille Kanene, spoke of the options exploited for the densification of this city, indicating that Goma has a high density of occupation, of which 13 out of 18 neighborhoods are over- densified.
According to him, the city of Goma has a population of between 2,000 and 2,200 inhabitants / hectare, while the normal density threshold is between 240 and 300 inhabitants / hectare.
« The options on which we worked consist in de-densifying Goma and the large gas zones in certain districts, called Mazoukou and considered as non-habitable exclusion zones following all the lava flows from the eruptions of 1927, 1977, 2002 and 2021 ”he added.
He also raised the need to reforest in these exclusion zones, to serve as green spaces and to build satellite cities, within a radius of 40 km all around Goma, taking into account fractures. tectonics that the city undergoes. He stressed that ISAU uses the participatory and inclusive approach, to carry out this work, before counting on the participation at all levels of the administration of this city.
As for the duration of this work, Professor Corneille Kanene indicated that the PUR developed by ISAU came out of a priority action program, supported by the government, which must contact development partners to be able to finance this priority action plan.
« We have programmed that the documents should be validated, approved by the executive and adopted by the legislative body so that they are binding on all. We will have done our part to provide the government with the necessary documents, the plan itself to manage the city and also a priority investment program for urgent interventions, « said Professor Kanene.
The plan is implemented by the Urban Development Program (PDU), funded by the World Bank and overseen by the Ministry of Urban Planning and Housing. ACP/
