In several suburbs of Kampala, quiet residential streets are fast disappearing under concrete and steel. Bungalows that once sat behind hedges now stand shoulder to shoulder with multi-storey apartment blocks, office buildings, bars and arcades.
Heavy trucks squeeze through narrow access roads, generators hum day and night, and compounds once meant for family life have turned into busy commercial corridors. The residents say high-rise and commercial buildings are steadily encroaching on neighbourhoods originally planned for low-density housing-often without consultation or regard for zoning laws.
What is unfolding in the capital is increasingly being replicated in other Ugandan towns and cities, including Mbale, Mbarara, Gulu and Fort Portal, raising fresh concerns about the enforcement of physical planning laws and the future of orderly urban growth.
Mr Willy Nangosyah, a retired government engineer, explained that the Physical Planning Act of 2010 designates the entire country as a physical planning area. Under this law, every local government must have both a physical planning committee and a building committee.
No building can be constructed without the approval of these committees, which regularly convene to review and authorise plans. Committees exist at the town council or sub-county level, as well as at district and city levels. All building plans must be approved before construction begins. While the law is clear, the major challenge is that there are no comprehensive physical plans covering the entire country. Efforts were made through three projects in Bududa and Bundibugyo, aimed at developing physical plans for all districts in Uganda. Mr Nangosyah emphasised that any building not approved and supervised poses serious risks. Environmentally, such structures may collapse, endangering lives and causing harm to the surrounding environment.
The court case that has pitted Justice Julia Sebutinde of the International Court of Justice against her neighbours in Bugolobi, Kampala, including Secretary to the Judiciary, Pius Bigirimana, where a multi-storeyed apartment block is shooting up, underscores other fears. Mr Bigirimana, together with residents Lerry Kato Ssempala, Grace Natukunda and Loretta Umutesi, dragged justice Sebutinde and her husband, John Bagunywa Sebutinde, to the Civil Division of the High Court, seeking to stop the construction. The suit also lists Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) and another individual identified as Joseph Wamala as defendants. The Sebutindes insist that they got the all clear from relevant authorities.
Getting approvals
The Ministry of Works and Transport spokesperson, Ms Suzan Kataike, said people should get building permits from the respective local governments before they construct. ‘If your building is in Wakiso District, go to the Wakiso Local Government to get permits before you start constructing buildings,’ Ms Kataike told Saturday Monitor.
Under Uganda’s Physical Planning Act, 2010, every district and city is required to have an approved physical development plan that zones land for residential, commercial, industrial or mixed use. Any change of land use, from residential to commercial, must be approved by the relevant Physical Planning Committee.
A member of a District Physical Planning Committee explains that approvals are not automatic.
‘We assess traffic flow, environmental impact, sanitation, parking and the views of neighbours,’ the official says.
‘Constructing a commercial building in a purely residential zone without approval is illegal.’ Timothy Chemonges, a legislative analyst specialising in governance, explained that physical plans are designed to clearly separate low-density residential areas from mixed-use and commercial zones, with strict limits on building height, density, and permitted activities.
‘While the legal framework exists, the challenge lies in enforcement. Political interference, weak institutional capacity, and corruption often result in developments that contradict approved plans being irregularly approved or simply ignored,’ Mr Chemonges said.
He noted that a development becomes illegal once it violates approved plans, zoning regulations, or safety standards. However, enforcement is typically reactive.
Mr Chemonges warned that if this trend continues, cities will become increasingly congested, unsafe, and environmentally fragile. ‘Infrastructure will deteriorate, disaster risks will escalate, and communities will lose trust in planning institutions-ultimately making cities harder and more expensive to govern.’
Digitalisation
In 2023, the National Building Review Board (NBRB), the regulatory body for the building sector, embraced digitalisation through the introduction of the Building Industry Management System (BIMS) by providing building permits online. Developed by local talents from NBRB and the National Information Technology Authority-Uganda (Nita-U), the BIMS was launched in December 2022 to digitise all building control processes in Uganda. The BIMS offers a comprehensive solution to improve the supervision, monitoring, and enforcement of building laws. Its implementation seeks to address the frequent building accidents that have resulted in the loss of lives and property.
Through BIMS, developers can now apply for building and occupation permits, engage registered professionals, schedule routine building operation inspections, and receive instant feedback on their online requests. Additionally, all prescribed building control fees can be paid online as the system is integrated with other online payment platforms. This level of scrutiny helps eliminate non-professionals and middlemen who have been involved in issuing incorrect building plans and designs for many collapsed buildings.
The BIMS also automates the payment of building control fees. These fees are calculated based on the floor area in square metres, considering the classification and location of the building. Once all other requirements are fulfilled, developers can generate a payment reference number indicating the applicable fees. The payment can then be made using any preferred payment system. The BIMS ensures efficient, transparent, and predictable collection of building control fees by the government.
The numbers
Since its launch, BIMS has been fully operational in 11 cities, 31 municipalities, and several local governments, including Wakiso, Mukono, and Jinja. Operating under the Ministry of Works and Transport, it is mandated to monitor building developments and ensure the design and construction of buildings are accessible to persons with disabilities. According to planners, some developers exploit loopholes in the approval process. In several cases, approval is granted for residential houses, only for developers to alter designs mid-construction.
Ms Lydia Nekesa, an environmental expert, said: ‘By the time enforcement teams intervene, the building is complete, and the political pressure begins.’
She said in other instances, construction starts before approvals are granted, with developers betting that authorities will later regularise the structures rather than order demolition. According to a Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos) report of 2016, the total number of plans submitted in 2015 was 6,539. This represented a 47 per cent increase from 4,432 plans submitted in 2014, containing 2,146 commercial plans submitted, up from 1,360 in 2013.
Of the submitted applications in 2015, 5,777 were approved, registering a 30 per cent increase in comparison to the previous years. During 2019, the majority of Building Plans submitted were for residential structures (59.1 per cent), followed by commercial structures (28.8 per cent) and institutional structures (3.7 per cent), while other building categories registered less than 2.0 per cent. Statistics of building plans approved in 2019 show that 58 per cent were residential buildings, 29.7 per cent were commercial buildings, 5.4 per cent were mixed-use and 4.0 per cent were Institutional buildings.
Comparing plans approved in 2018, 57.7 per cent were residential buildings, 29.5 per cent were commercial buildings, 5.3 per cent were for mixed-use, while 4.0 per cent were institutional plans. The Industrial building categories registered less than 2.0 per cent in both 2019 and 2018. In 2019, 77.0 per cent of all the occupation permits were for commercial buildings, almost nine per cent were for residential buildings, while four per cent were for Industrial buildings.