From Noah Ebije, Kaduna
No fewer then 961 property owners in Gbagyi Villa layouts, Kaduna, who responded to the Kaduna State government’s regularization programme will soon be given building permit and Certificate of Occupancy (C of O).
The property owners will be receiving invitations from Kaduna State Urban and Property Development Agency (KASUPDA) and Kaduna Geographic Information Service (KADGIS) for their approved building documents.
Daily Sun’s investigations revealed that the 961 property owners are benefitting from the programme to regularise illegal layouts initiated by the state government in June 2022.
At the close of the regularisation process for Gbagyi Villa in December 2022, owners of 961 parcels out of 2,806 parcels of land expected to apply for regularisation had not submitted any documents.
An official in KASUPDA said that the State Governor Nasir El-rufai decided to embark on the regularization programme out of compassion for the embattled property owners.
Findings by our correspondent showed that the state government has approved 20 illegal layouts for regularisation, including Gidan Daji, Sabon Gida, Danbushiya, Danhono and Babban Saura, all in Millennium Village.
Other layouts approved for the regularisation scheme include Chanchangi Kinkinau, Oil Village, Kamazo, Gbagyi Villa, and NITEL Television.
The policy to regularise illegal layouts was designed to enable people who had built property in unapproved places to obtain legal status for their property by providing documentation and paying penalties.
It was further gathered that property in these illegal layouts are often subject to removal because those layouts are believed to distorting town planning regularisations or even encroach on the valid titles of other persons or organisations.
Some of these illegal layouts have actually been removed since 2015 in places like Zaria and Kaduna metropolis. But the state government decided to review its enforcement of laws and regulations in the real estate sector in a way that warns residents against the consequences of violations but also mitigates losses for residents who had property in some of the illegal layouts by offering them a route to regularisation.